Ignis Chaldea
by Exstarsis
Summary: Welcome to Chaldea in the funhouse mirror, where everything's just a little bit twisted. Ritsuka has a thing about fire. Mash is a little bit colder and harder. Where is Fou anyway? And the Servants…? Well everybody's got an Alter in them somewhere.
1. 0 Incineration

**Author's Note:_  
_**Welcome to Ignis Chaldea, a collection of dark (and sometimes darkly erotic) scenes set in a Chaldea not quite like the one we know. This fic is tagged 'Mature' for a reason; if sexual content with a twisted emotional core bothers you, I instead encourage you to check out the far more wholesome "Saga of Shirou's Summons." If you do read on, though, you'll get to meet such unusual figures as the demi-Servant Angra Marie, and the mage-king Merlin Alter, both of whom I quite like... 

* * *

Fire. Fire was a god. Sometimes she felt like she'd been born in fire. Had her hair always been this orange? She couldn't remember. Neither could anybody else.

Fire wasn't the kind of god to love, though. Fire was a monster, and the more one fed him, the bigger he grew. The more he took. For little Ritsuka, eventually he took everything she had and she got sent to a group home for orphans.

That burned down, too.

No, it wasn't her. She had a strict rule against feeding fires.

But she didn't put them out, either.

Another boy at that group home worshipped fire, but he thought it _needed_ him. He thought he was bringing life. Except one night the fire outgrew him and his worship vanished just like that. He ran, rousing the house, leaving her alone on the edge of the flames when the firefighters finally arrived.

The next group home was for the _guilty_ instead of the _innocent. _Ritsuka did her best, but eventually it was just too much for her. That was one of the few times she broke the rule about feeding fires. Everyone else had gone to the summer festival fireworks. She just… put something in the oven and turned it on.

And then she ran, and ran, and ran. All the way to Antarctica, in the end. Not a lot of fires there, she figured.

Except here she was again, staring at an inferno from only a few feet away. A man with fire-touched hair said sadly beside her, "No survivors in there. I'll go—"

She tuned him out. Nothing survived fire. Nothing that mattered, anyhow. Not family, not friends, not hope. This fire, born of an explosion, was a big one. There weren't a lot of places to run, either. Chaldea was on a mountain covered in ice at the very bottom of the world. They say hope burns brightest in the dark, and in the bombed and powerless research station, Ritsuka Fujimaru saw it was true.

Hypnotized by her past and her future merging into one, Ritsuka wandered into the burning room. It was quieter than the first fire, the one that had taken her family. The flames had their own song, but nobody was screaming this time.

"Hello?" said somebody, in a wavering, pained voice from near Ritsuka's feet. Under a broken piece of machinery lay the strange girl Ritsuka had met before. Mash, her name had been. She'd said Ritsuka was the only person in Chaldea who didn't make her feel threatened. Now rippling pools of her blood reflected the growing fire.

Mash's hand moved weakly, and without thinking about why, Ritsuka stooped down to touch her palm to palm.

For as long as she could remember, Ritsuka had been afraid. Fire was about the only thing Ritsuka didn't hide from, and that was because there was no point. Fire ate everything. Her normal fear had simply vanished when she saw the Control Room fire on the monitor due to how overwhelming it was. But now, tears rolling down her cheeks as Mash weakly held her hand, all the terror came rolling back. She didn't want to die, and she didn't want this strange girl to die.

Her tears were cool compared to the air around her. The terrible smell of burnt wire and electronic smoke choked her. She smelled earth, too, and ice, as ridiculous as that was. But the worst scent was this girl's blood. Ritsuka had fallen to her knees in a puddle leaking from the girl's side.

Somewhere a computer was talking, counting down. It seemed like a voice in a dream, one that couldn't possibly exist, except as a cruel joke.

"Possibly—" said Mash. A light flashed around them. And when Ritsuka woke up again, the whole world had burned.


	2. 1 Valley of Shadows pt 1

The way the concept had been initially explained to her, Ritsuka had imagined Servants to be like genies. Powerful magical entities dependent on her as an anchor to the world, who could do miraculous things. Phantasmal purveyors of special effects. One of them had even possessed her companion Mash, healing her and giving her a power-up in exchange for completing a mission

That initial explanation hadn't really mentioned they usually had bodies of their own, let alone bodies capable of the smugly sardonic expression on the man in blue. He walked ahead of them, leading the way through a burned out urban wasteland to his 'hideout'. He had a staff and called himself Caster, but he moved like a tiger and looked at Ritsuka like she was lunch.

"And here we are!" The man in blue waved his staff before leading them through a hole in one wall of a partially-standing building that didn't look like it was about to collapse. "We'll at least be out of sight in here, while we take care of some necessary business."

He and the Director began to wrangle about something, but Ritsuka couldn't pay attention. While the walls of the hideout obstructed the view of the many fires consuming the remains of the city, it did nothing to block the smell or the haze of smoke. Her mind didn't work right around fires. On the one hand, she didn't feel frightened around fire the way she did so much of the time. On the other hand, she didn't feel much of anything else, either. Sometimes her body even did things while her mind was far away, devoured by the flames.

"Senpai," said Mash, kneeling down beside her, looking at her with that strange sidelong look she had. She was an odd girl, the oddest person Ritsuka had met during her trip or after her arrival at Chaldea. She talked about life like she was documenting something that had happened to someone else.

Ritsuka hugged her knees, looking back at Mash. The other girl said, "Stay strong, senpai. I can fight these battles, but I require your presence to do so. Without you, my Master, I would simply fade away."

"Master…" Ritsuka muttered, looking down at her hand, the hand she'd pressed to Mash's in the burning control room. A convoluted shape had been branded into her skin, palm and top. She didn't remember the pain, but it must have been there.

"In return for your strength as an anchor, I will protect you," said Mash, in a voice that sounded like she was promising food to a stray cat, and might have been her attempt to sound encouraging.

"Fine!" said the Director, abruptly ending whatever she'd been discussing with the blue-robed Caster Servant. "There she is. Do what you have to."

The Caster's garnet gaze moved across Mash to settle on Ritsuka. Her shoulders hunched under the scrutiny. _Lunchtime._

"Oy, missy," he said. "Ready to contract with me as your temporary Servant?"

"You'd better be," snapped the Director. "Although I don't expect much out of the likes of _you_."

What the Director said made more sense to Ritsuka than what the Caster had said. She hadn't come to Antarctica to be a _Master_. She'd called the recruitment number on the poster because Antarctica had sounded like a nice place to vanish. She had no talent and no training, despite the smiling lies told by the recruitment officer after waving an electronic wand over her.

Not that it usually bothered her very much. There were usually much more concrete things to be afraid of. No need to waste time over abstract concepts of social skills obligation.

But now, here she was, with a big foreigner looking down at her like he'd just entered a host club for the first time. He wanted her to be his _Master_, just like she'd somehow become Mash's _Master_.

"I don't know how to do that," she said quietly, lifting her gaze to his face. It was long and thin, with a pointy chin that made her think of arrowheads. "It just happened with Mash."

"Aw, well, there's a few ways," said Caster with an easy grin. "But the easiest and fastest way I know is with a little kiss."

Mash tilted her head again. "A kiss? But I received no kiss from Senpai." She frowned, as if this bothered her.

"Well, you might go and remedy that before I take my turn," encouraged Caster. "Wouldn't want you to miss out."

The Director gave a dramatic sigh, crossed her arms and looked away. "Just get it over with, already."

"You just gotta lean over and give the lass a wet one," said Caster, as if the Director hadn't spoken.

"A wet one," said Mash thoughtfully. "Yes, I see. The exchange of fluids would facilitate a magic connection." She rose up on her knees, eyeing Ritsuka.

"Of course, it'd help a tad if the lass uncurled from being a pillbug." The Caster crouched down near Ritsuka. "What's amiss? Feeling shy?"

Ritsuka looked down. "I'm afraid of fire." It wasn't true, not the way she was afraid of: men, hospitals, courtrooms, windowless rooms, the police, sleeping too long, big dogs, loud noises, strange girls who stared at her, and cruel words. But she'd found it to be a helpful lie, anyhow. At least until they found her standing and watching one, and blamed her instead.

She wondered how she was responsible for this burning city.

Caster said, "Well, a good kiss'll take you right away from that. Why not let the other missy start?"

The smell of charred meat, tantalizing and horrible, wafted through the broken parts of the walls. It didn't linger, overwhelmed quickly by the scent of burning architecture, but it cleared Ritsuka's mind of the other fears that had managed to creep in.

She sat up straight and then moved to her knees. Mash scooted closer to her. "I don't want to make any mistakes, senpai. Since I've never been a Servant before—"

Mash shrugged and Ritsuka shrugged back. Then Mash laced her fingers through Ritsuka's own and pressed their lips together.

It was a soft, almost sisterly kiss, but once again holding hands with Mash had an unexpected effect on Ritsuka, sweeping away the fire's dominion over her mind and bringing back her visceral awareness of everything else: Mash's soft, cool hand against her hot, sweaty one. Mash's dry, gentle lips held to her own. The roughness of the splintered, pitted floor under Ritsuka's knees. The Director's sigh. Ritsuka's fear of both the Director and the tall man in blue surfaced, too.

The Caster said, "Aw, and that's very sweet. Feel free to stop there and let me have my turn, but that's not going to get any additional magic connections firing. I mean, you've got plenty already—"

Mash's tongue licked across Ritsuka's lips and she obediently opened them, her fingers tightening against Mash's. For a few heartbeats, wet tongue touched wet tongue. Then Mash pulled her head back, looking puzzled. "I thought I felt something odd, senpai?"

Ritsuka had also thought this, her first voluntary kiss, had felt strange, almost uncomfortable. But she didn't want it to end, because after that it meant that man, that _Servant_, would expect her to _contract _with him and if she didn't do it, the Director would punish her.

So she leaned forward, kissing Mash again. The contact was warm and physical and _real_, genuine in a way that Mash's words and behaviors sometimes lacked. It was also awkward and strange and felt like they were trying out something they'd both read in a manual and weren't quite getting right. Ritsuka wasn't really sure if teeth were supposed to be involved. It seemed unlikely but what did one do with them? Pictures were unclear.

"Oho, yes, well done, missies!" laughed the Caster. "My turn now, I think."

Mash squeezed Ritsuka's hand. "Thank you, senpai," she said softly as she pulled away. "I'm sorry. I really just wanted to see what it was like. You shouldn't let me take energy you'll need for other Servants. What we already have between us is plenty for a Servant like me."

Ritsuka bit her lip and looked down, letting Mash take her hand away. Even without Mash's touch, she was still feeling again: fear, mostly, but also a warmth toward the other girl. "Thank you, Mash. I'm… I'm not threatened by you, either. It was nice." She hoped by repeating the other girl's own words back to her, from a conversation before the explosion at Chaldea, she could explain why she was grateful for the kiss.

Then the Caster was looming over her. He held out a hand with a cocky grin. "Up with you, missy. For the real deal, we'll do this my way, if you please."

Ritsuka pushed herself to her feet without Caster's aid. He noticed, but he didn't get angry like she'd half-expected. "Not just fire that frightens you, eh? I'd thought we might step away a bit, but this is fine if you're happier with your friends about."

Shrugging, Ritsuka repeated the Director's words. "Just get it over with."

"Aye, there's some immortal words for a hero to take to his heart, if ever I've heard any. Look up, lass." Long fingers ran along her jaw, giving the slightest upward push.

She raised her eyes. He still loomed over her, but at least his faint smile didn't look cruel. "Y'know, don't you, that contracting with a Masterless Servant will make them your protectors? Y'empower them and tie them to the world, but they're gone lickety-split without you."

Ritsuka couldn't make sense of this. She'd never had anything like a _protector_. Even the people designated as her _guardians_ hadn't protected her. And the blue-haired Caster had a scent of his own very different from the fire: a musk that hit her deep in the back of her nose and made her want to push her face against him. It made it hard to think.

He chuckled when she didn't answer and, leaving the one hand on her face, put his other hand lightly on her shoulder. That was all the warning she got before he was kissing her. Despite his hands, his mouth wasn't gentle. He didn't knock on the outskirts and wait to be invited in. He invaded, parting her lips with one stroke and moving to plunder what lay within.

And whatever hadn't been quite right about kissing Mash was remedied with him. Experience, presumably. He clearly knew what he was doing. And with a rapidness that should have frightened her (but didn't), a new kind of fire swept through Ritsuka: both hungry and consuming, but not painful.

_Was this what it felt like to _be_ fire_? she wondered dreamily, as the Caster's probing tongue and soft lips held her captive. She didn't want to flee. She didn't even want to stop. For the first time, she didn't feel afraid or emptied by flames. All she wanted was for this Caster to keep kissing her.

When the Director finally said, "Oh my god, you've been doing that long enough! Stop right now! We have to solve this Singularity!" the Caster didn't stop, and Ritsuka realized the Director's ability to punish her was… _limited_ by having this tall man as her protector. Here, anyhow, in Singularity F. F for fire. F for freedom.

She put her hands on his chest, touching the skin under his collarbone, and he nipped at her mouth, showing her just how teeth could be used.

"Come on!" screeched the Director. "Stop already, please! I think I hear monsters outside!"

The Caster's mouth separated from Ritsuka's just enough for him to murmur, "What d'you think, Master? She's getting a mite heated under the collar."

Ritsuka wanted to kiss him some more, but beyond the walls of the shelter came the familiar growl of the monsters of Singularity F, while beside her was the clank of Mash deploying her shield.

"All right," Ritsuka whispered. "Go and defeat them. Come back after."

He kissed her one more time, and stepped away. With a rakish kind of bow to Ritsuka, he said to Mash, "Let's do this outside, yeah?"

"Yes," said Mash. She and Caster walked outside to face the monsters, and, leaving the Director alone in the building, Ritsuka followed her two Servants to their battle.


	3. 2 A Flame in the Night pt 1

Olga Marie Animusphere, hereditary Director of Chaldea, sat on one side of a crumbling, burnt wall. On the other side, two Servants and the only Chaldean Master arranged certain unpleasant affairs. The Director didn't want to be there. She _certainly_ didn't want to be listening. But blocking them out meant blocking out the sound of any monsters sneaking up on them, which would at the very least be fatal for _her_. And Olga Marie Animusphere intended on living, thank you very much.

The Caster's low voice easily penetrated the distressed barrier as he said, "Now, since you're so fond of the lass, Master, here's how we're going to do this. Mash is going to follow my instructions as I talk her through the basics. I know you're new to this and the last thing I want to do is hurt you. Relaxing helps, but we're not exactly in congenial circumstances right now. Still, I think between Mash and myself we can make sure you're all right."

The Director hunched forward, her gaze roving around the urban wasteland as Caster's amused chuckle grated against her ears. She felt positive nothing nearly so complicated was required just for Ritsuka to replenish Caster's stock of magical energy. Why did he have to take both of them away, leaving the Director all alone?

After a brief silence—apparently neither Mash nor Ritsuka had any intelligible opinion on Caster's ridiculous plan—he began speaking again. "Now, Mash'll stay on this side of you and I'll be back here, Master. We'll be doing our best to stay dressed, so if yon Director gives us a warning, we'll be able to move quickly."

The Director ground her teeth. How dare he speak of her as if she couldn't hear everything he said? He could have at least spoken _to _her rather than _about_ her.

"Let's start with Mash giving you another kiss, if that's all right with you, Master."

Shaking her head, the Director jumped to her feet. She'd watched the first kiss impatiently, both worried and upset about her own inability to perform as a Master and what that meant about her presence in Singularity F. The kiss had been… sweet: two girls who had no idea what they were doing, learning about each other under that blue-haired bastard's laughing eye. Sweet, in a way that only made Olga Marie hurt inside. Now, although the wall broke line of sight and absorbed the smallest sounds, the vision once again played in her mind's eye.

"Ah, yeah, you're both enjoying that," said Caster. "So much I'm almost jealous."

Ritsuka said, "Mmf," and then, with tragic eagerness, "Caster, I can kiss you—"

"And leave out your friend? My way's better for everyone, lass. I'll help out from back here when the time comes."

Unexpected tears pricked Olga Marie's eyes. She almost wished she didn't have the responsibility she did. If only her father hadn't died in such a way. If only Lev were around. If only even one of the other Masters had survived, and they hadn't met this blue _asshole_—

"Now you put your hands here, Mash darling. See? Nice and soft, aren't they. And look how she likes it."

"Senpai?" asked Mash anxiously. "Do you?"

In a breathy voice, Ritsuka said, "Y-yes. It's fine."

"Kiss her again," encouraged Caster.

Olga Marie slid down the wall again, frantically scanning the wasteland for anything to save her from this incredibly unpleasant situation. Skeletons. Blackened Servants. Lev. _Anything._

From the other side of the wall, somebody gasped and then moaned.

* * *

Mash had improved at kissing just from her single previous attempt, and between her soft mouth against Ritsuka's own and Caster's lips against her shoulder, Ritsuka felt well-distracted from the distant, always-burning fires. And then Caster had unbuckled her uniform front, pulling the top half open so Mash could cup Ritsuka's breasts. That moved the whole affair to another level. Ritsuka could still smell the smoke, but it mingled with Mash's hair and Caster's musk. Was it the hot breeze on her cheek, or a man's breath? Mash's hands were so warm, but it was a good warmth, a gentle warmth that would never hurt her.

Somehow this had started with Caster needing a mana transfer so he could use his Noble Phantasm against the blackened Saber guarding the treasure at the heart of the Singularity. The Director had declared they _had_ to recover it, and Caster had smiled his quiet little smile…

…and now Ritsuka stood here, kissing Mash as the Shielder fondled her, with the Caster behind her, his hands on her hips and his breath lightly stirring her hair. The Director was somewhere nearby, supposedly keeping watch while they attended to this 'oh yes, very necessary' ritual (according to Caster). The Director was always angry at Ritsuka, which frightened her, but she'd recognized the stricken look in the other girl's eyes at Caster's proposal. And yet the Director hadn't exactly _complained_, and Ritsuka knew far better than to presume uninvited.

"Ah, girls, you're indulging yourselves now," came Caster's voice in her ear, as the endless hot breeze briefly died away. "But best we keep moving along. This isn't just fun and games. Mash, I'd like you to move down a little. Put your mouth where your hands are, put your hands where mine are."

Obediently, Mash broke away from Ritsuka's lips and began to trail little kisses down one of Ritsuka's breasts. The odor of smoke intensified, but Mash's mouth moved so delicately that the smoke seemed like an abstract warning written in chalk rather than the usual neon letters in the sky. Then Mash reached the soft skin at the tip of her breast.

"Oh!" said Ritsuka, and bit her lip as she caught a slight sound from the other side of the wall nearby. But Mash's lips closed over her nipple, and she forgot all about where the Director might be as _sensation_ bolted through her body. When at the same time Caster began to kiss her neck, her knees trembled and Ritsuka could only be relieved that she was supported between two other bodies. _This is an important ritual_, she thought dazedly. _But they're making me feel so good._

Mash's fingers tightened against Ritsuka's hips as she concentrated on her assigned task with increasing fervor. But her kohai's mouth remained gentle even as her tongue moved more rapidly. Caster leaned over Ritsuka's shoulder, watching Mash's work. "Yeah, there you go, girl. Make her forget about everything but you."

Where they stood in a seared, blackened city, that wasn't going to be happening. Those cinders got everywhere. However, when Caster unexpectedly put his hands under Ritsuka's skirt and slid her tights partway down her thighs, she momentarily forgot the fires in the face of an instinctive reaction to a potential closer threat.

"Caster—?" she began in a near panic, and Mash looked up sharply.

"Has to happen, Master, unless you want me damaging your clothing instead. As pleasant as it can be, we've got an agenda here if we want to win."

"Oh… oh yes. I was just taken by surprise," said Ritsuka in a small voice. "You didn't warn me."

Caster was quiet a moment, and Mash's arms slid around Ritsuka's waist protectively as she stared over Ritsuka's shoulder at the man.

"I'm sorry about that," he said finally, and the playful edge had vanished from his voice. "Got caught up in the moment. Forgot I'm supposed to be the guide for two in this delightful little arrangement." He stood again. When Ritsuka looked up at his tall form, he stroked his fingers along her jaw. "Have I ruined it all?"

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Ritsuka glanced at Mash, who met her gaze gravely. "Not ruined… But I liked the talking. It helps me… jump less."

Mash squeezed her around the waist again before returning to kissing her way down Ritsuka's other breast.

"Well then, in the spirit of fair warning, if we have what they call an _emergent situation_, I _might_ be cutting through your tights so you can run. So let's keep moving briskly along and we'll avoid that contingency, eh?"

Yet despite his words, he simply returned to kissing her neck, giving Ritsuka a chance to once again try to relax in the arms of her lovers. As Caster kissed the tension from her shoulders and Mash grew bold in her attentions to Ritsuka's chest, Ritsuka's breath started becoming ragged, little sounds escaping her throat.

"There we are. Next step. I'll take over up here, Mash." Caster's hands, rougher and larger than Mash's, moved across Ritsuka's breasts, entirely containing them. "Master, take hold of your skirt and pull it out of Mash's way. Mash, you're moving on down again."

One of Caster's hands drifted down under Ritsuka's crumpled skirt and stroked the recently exposed skin just above her core. As Ritsuka shuddered at the surging of her internal fire, he said, "You'll put your mouth here, lass. Explore a little. Use your tongue. I'll keep things warm above, and once she's ready, we'll move onto the main event."

Mash knelt in front of Ritsuka, but looked up at her, her pale hair falling across one eye as she searched Ritsuka's face. "Are you all right with this, senpai? If you prefer, I can leave you and Caster alone. I'm sure he doesn't really need me for this." She spoke with without jealousy or insecurity, as if she was simply stating facts.

Ritsuka thought of the fires and put her fingers through Mash's hair, revealing her hidden eye briefly. "Do… do you want to go? Are you uncomfortable?"

"No, senpai. I'm enjoying myself very much." Again that calm statement of fact, and Ritsuka hoped it was more true than her previous 'fact,' which was missing some important details.

"I'm all right too," Ritsuka whispered. "You… you being here makes me feel safer."

Mash searched her face one more time, before nodding once and hiding her face against Ritsuka's pelvis.

"Good lass," said Caster conversationally, as Mash's tongue flicked out against the outer folds enclosing Ritsuka's core. "Use your fingers, too, as needed." His own fingers moved across Ritsuka's nipples, stroking softly in a way that made the almost ticklish feeling of Mash's initial contact not just bearable but exciting. She swallowed a daydream about being someplace less on fire and focused on that excitement, letting it pulse through her.

Caster pressed his mouth against Ritsuka's neck again before saying, "I'm doing my very best to be as gentle as the lass, Master, but you've already seen that I'm usually a tad more fierce in my loving."

Ritsuka drew in a breath to respond, and then another breath, sharply, as Mash's tongue delved a little deeper into shielded softness. A third gasp, and she managed, "A little of your teeth is okay. "

The Director's voice, oddly thick and low, drifted around the wall, "Oh, please hurry…"

Caster paused a moment, his head tilting as he listened. But when the Director said no more, he simply returned to kissing Ritsuka's neck and shoulders, this time adding the occasional sharp delight of a nip. Mash slid her hands from Ritsuka's hips to her backside, leaning into her task, the pressure of her fingers itself seeming to reach Ritsuka's core. Every swipe of Mash's tongue left lines of pleasure behind, each one chaining to the next.

Ritsuka realized she'd had both hands in Mash's hair, her own head flung back against Caster's chest, with her breath coming in short pants as her hips twitched. Caster had one arm around her waist, stabilizing her, while he'd continued to fondle her beasts and nibble on her ear.

"Keep up the work, Mash," he whispered. "Steady and regular, that'll get her there. Master, I'm moving a hand down there too, to get a lay of the landscape. Don't be afraid to tell me if it gets a little uncomfortable."

"Mmm," managed Ritsuka, who was having momentary trouble imagining anything short of a real fire being uncomfortable, what with Caster's arms around her and Mash's mouth where it was, even when Caster moved his hand away from her breast.

A moment later his fingers, warm and wet, moved toward Mash's tongue from behind, sending an almost nervous thrill skittering across Ritsuka's skin. She bit her lip, anxious not to send the wrong signals to her companions, but suddenly nearly every bit of her attention had been commanded by Caster. Even the threat of the distant fires faded as one of Caster's fingers inched its way inside her.

"Stellar work, Mash. Don't get distracted by me, stay focused on our sweet, soft Master. Tastes good, I bet. Later, in safer places… well, later. And you'll be getting your own refresh this way, don't forget that. She's so strong in her way, our Master. And how's that, Master? Any pain?"

Ritsuka shook her head frantically. Although his finger felt strange and new, it didn't feel _bad_ at all. It almost felt good, especially when he pulled it out and pushed it in again. When he did that a second time, in conjunction with the rhythm of Mash's tongue, Ritsuka groaned.

"Almost there," breathed Caster, and pushed two fingers in, applying pressure to the inner walls of Ritsuka's passage. Two strokes in and out and Ritsuka found herself wriggling urgently, only the arm around her waist and Mash supporting one of her knees keeping her upright. She didn't even remember when Mash had done that, but the two Servants now almost entirely supported her weight.

"All right, nice and slick you are, Master. Mash, here we go," said Caster. "Keep doing your best." Something larger and hotter than two fingers pressed against the entrance to Ritsuka's core and then slowly, slowly pushed its way inside. When it finally stopped moving, Caster gave a long, controlled exhale, as if a challenging task had been completed.

"In a minute or so," he began, his voice hoarser than usual. Then he stopped, biting Ritsuka's shoulder as Mash swiped broadly with her tongue before he managed to continue. "In a minute, soon as I've got myself together, I'm going to move, lasses. Might be a bit vigorous, but I think it'll be okay." He added in a barely audible mutter, "Ah, Master, you're so tight…"

He remained very still for a moment made long and increasingly intense by Mash's mouth. Ritsuka started to feel like she was drifting apart and coming back together again, especially once Caster absently moved his now free hand back to her breast. He only held it, but somehow it provided just enough _sensation_ to take Ritsuka to the very edge of reason.

"Now," said Caster softly, and began to move.

* * *

It had to be almost over, right? Olga Marie once again cowered against the wall, scanning their surroundings. She had her hands over her ears now, but only loosely. No sound was blocked but she still felt a little like she was hiding under her covers, shielded by more than a stupid wall against the increasingly loud moans coming from the other side. She knew each of their sounds too well now: Caster's little huffs of exertion and Ritsuka's higher pitched yelps, while Mash was responsible for most of the _wet_ noises.

And here was Olga Marie, hidden away: alone, irrelevant, forgotten. They had to save _everybody_ and what did Olga Marie matter against that? Not one bit. Her father had made that very clear. She understood. She did her best to live up to his dream. But did reality have to rub it in _so much? _She _knew_ she was a disappointment: a failed daughter, a failed Master, a failed Director. A bomb had gone off in Chaldea Command! She couldn't fail much worse than that.

The sounds from beyond the wall became even more fevered, and then Caster gave a louder huff and Ritsuka's yelps quietened. Were they finally done? Or had something interrupted them again? That Ritsuka was so _delicate_. She needed to toughen up—

"She's whimpering…" came Ritsuka's soft voice.

Olga Marie realized with horror that it was _her_. She had her fist pushed against her mouth to muffle herself, but she'd still been whining like an abandoned dog.

Quickly, she tried to pull herself together, but before she managed it, Ritsuka appeared around the side of the wall. She looked like a wreck: her hair wild, her uniform partially unbuttoned and her skirt rumpled—and she clearly didn't care as she rushed over to Olga Marie.

"I'm fine!" snapped the Director as Ritsuka knelt down in front of her. "You—"

Ritsuka looked at her earnestly, those big eyes that had always seemed so empty to Olga Marie suddenly swimming with emotion. "Thank you so much for keeping watch."

The Director stiffened and tried to push herself to her feet, but her cramped legs betrayed her. "It's about time—"

Caster, having come around from the other side of the wall, put his hand on Olga Marie's head. "Good job, lass. We couldn't have done it without you."

The Director's face tightened further and she glared up at the infuriating, awful man. She opened her mouth to tell all of them off… and then, completely inexplicably, Olga Marie burst into tears.

* * *

The blackened Saber form of King Arthur faded away, but Caster remained. "I've still got some energy left," he said with a smile and a shrug. "I guess what we did bound me to you a little more closely than before."

"Whatever," snapped the Director. "How did that Saber know the name Grand Order anyhow? Well, that doesn't matter for now. Let's call this mission complete and grab that crystal—"

A cold but familiar voice said, "Well, I didn't expect you'd get this far. Beyond my plan's expectations and my own tolerance. Master Candidate #48, I made quite a mistake in believing you nothing more than filler content."

Olga Marie stared at the materializing figure first in shock and then in growing delight. Lev! Lev could explain what was going on to her, the same way he'd explained why her father hadn't loved her, and what she had to achieve as a Director. Once again, her vision blurred with shameful tears as Lev greeted her companions. He didn't sound glad to see them, which she couldn't really blame him for. They were such a rash and reckless lot.

"Senpai, that man is dangerous. He isn't the Lev from Chaldea," said Mash calmly.

"What?" said Olga Marie. "Of course he is. Lev!" She started to scramble to him when a strong arm caught her around the waist.

"Hold up, Director-lass," said Caster in a quiet voice. Frantically she tried to escape so she could run to Lev, clawing and kicking in vain.

"Hello, Olga," said Lev. "Having a rough time of it?" He smiled.

"Yes, yes, that's right, Lev! The command room blew up, this city is awful, and I can't return to Chaldea! Let me _go,_ you oaf, that's Lev, he's my teacher, I wouldn't be here now without him!"

Lev laughed. "That's certainly true. I set the bomb right under your feet, Olga. And now here you are, a ghost in the system."

Olga Marie went limp in Caster's arms, staring at her beloved mentor. He didn't joke like that. His jokes, when he made them, were usually _funny_. "What?"

"Your body is dead, Olga. You'll never go back to Chaldea, never go back to your life. Not that anybody will… but you, annoying child, died there. You've nothing left." He gave her a happy smile.

"No, that can't be true!" cried Olga Marie, but even as she said it, she understood him. She never could have Rayshifted when alive. It was just one of her many failures. The only way she could be here now was if her body had been destroyed. And without a body, there was no way home again.

She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't.

"Can we kill him?" Ritsuka asked Mash quietly.

"Evaluating…" responded Mash.

Lev — or what looked like Lev — waved a hand and a burning red image of Chaldeas appeared between them. "Look at what your incompetent Directorship has accomplished, Olga. Be proud. Your brief life has ended at the same time as human history."

"That's not real!" She kicked again at Caster, wanting nothing more than to dash to that fake Lev so she could slap that smirk off his face. But Caster's implacable hold didn't weaken and she was forced to hang helplessly in his arms as Lev spoke.

"Oh, but it is. I've connected up dimensions with this Holy Grail. A fascinating invention… grants wishes, you know. Well, some wishes. Here, it's granting mine. Now, don't you want to come home, Olga?" sneered Lev. "Come touch your precious Chaldeas."

Something _pulled_ on Olga's body, like the earth pulled her back when she jumped. But Caster held her tight and after a moment the pull weakened.

"Well, no matter," said the Lev figure, dismissing her utterly from his attention, exactly as the old Lev had done when she disappointed him. That, more than anything, proved to her he was the same person. She slumped, darkness creeping over her vision.

"Come on, stay with us, Director-lass," murmured Caster. He shifted his grip on her, picking up her legs and cradling her to his chest. "I think we're about done here, and then maybe…"

Lev was saying something to Ritsuka and Romani but it hardly mattered. She, Olga Marie Animusphere, had broken _everything_ by trusting Lev. And now he was some kind of monster? Ugh. Maybe it really would have been better if she'd never been born.

"Aw, sniffles?" said Caster. "Come on, girl. The gloating bastard's gone."

"What does it matter?" snapped Olga Marie. "Don't you know what that burning red Chaldeas means? Everything else is gone too!"

"Yeah, he went on about that for a while," said Caster dryly. "But your base is still around. Gonna give up on that?"

"I'm dead! Even if you escape, I'm dead!"

Caster put her on her feet and patted her head again. "You're still standing here. Oy, girls! Did you get that crystal?"

Ritsuka ran over, holding something that managed to shine darkly. "Here it is!"

The ground shook underfoot. Olga Marie looked around wildly. "Is the cavern collapsing?"

"Yes," said Mash matter-of-factly. "We have approximately two minutes to restore you before we must withdraw."

"Hah! Just go, then! Don't get buried for_ me_!" Olga Marie crossed her arms and looked away from all of them.

"Director," said Ritsuka urgently. "Lev said the crystal was a wish-granting device."

Olga Marie shook her head. "And you believed him?" She was trying _so hard_ to be brave. Why wouldn't they let her? Why were they _pushing _ her?

"Hey, Director-lass," said Caster, pushing more. "Do you _want_ to be dead?"

"No!" wailed Olga Marie helplessly. "I want to live! I want to matter!"

Ritsuka shoved the shining thing into Olga Marie's arms. "Then make a wish."

The crystalline shape made Olga Marie tingle all over. She stared down at it, and saw the darkness within the light. It looked up at her, and then _through_ her, at the burning city and the incinerated future.

_Hah!_ said a dark voice in her mind. _You really want to live, lady? Even now?_

"Yes!" said Olga Marie. "Please?"

_Right_, said the dark voice, and stepped within her. Black pain flashed through her, the feeling of a thousand shards of molten metal stabbing through her body. Red voices howled through her mind and that dark personality from the crystal laughed and laughed until the finally the Rayshift came and she lost consciousness.

Later, when she woke up in the Chaldea infirmary, which was protected by a magnetic field from an incinerated world, she had strange tattoos all over her body. But she _did _wake up. That was the important thing. Olga Marie Animusphere woke up.


	4. 3 A Sigh On Damp Skin pt 1

Though the rest of the world had burned, they told her Chaldea was yet safe. But what kind of a haven could it be for Ritsuka when soon they would send her out again? She wouldn't go alone, but her allies were each double-edged blades, as interested in tasting her tender skin as they were in the enemies.

She had a room of her own, though, and Mash and Olga Marie had promised to kill any Servant who violated its sanctity without her consent. It let her sleep a little more deeply than before. Deep enough and long enough to dream.

_Hands_, so many hands, all over her body; they pulled her through clouds the color of sunburn, closer and closer to a throbbing core. It fluttered in time with her breath, pacing her pulse, and each peak made the sweat of anticipation bead on her skin. Then the hands touching her everywhere pulled her through the core and she and it were one, floating on a sunless sea, where the only sound was the lapping of waves and her own gasping breaths.

"I've been waiting for you, Ka-chan." It was a smooth, low voice, pleasant to hear. It came from the ocean that held her, and it touched her in all the places the water didn't.

Then, all at once, she heard the words as well as the voice and she flailed her way to consciousness. Or—

What—?

_Shh, shh, my pet. It's always hardest the first time._

Twin lines, cool and electric, traced themselves over her hot skin, mounting peaks to slide into a sheltered valley. In response, fire swept over the land.

And Ritsuka knew herself. She was not awake, nor was she asleep. She was _dreaming_, and in her dream, she stood in a throne room both vast and close. High walls reached into darkness, draped with billowing silks that shone with their own ghostly light and moved as if caught in a rising storm. A smiling man stood before her, and beyond him rose a throne on a mirrored dais, tall, dark and empty, with wisteria growing around it.

Tall birdcages stood on either side of the dais, but only one was occupied, containing a blond woman with dead eyes, a golden crown and a veil across her features. She sat quietly on her heels, while at its base lounged another woman, younger but almost identical. She was barely dressed in red, with a spiked collar. She had manacles and broken chains at her wrists and ankles, and her green eyes burned as she stared at Ritsuka.

"Ka-chan," came that smooth, pleasant voice again. She heard both a play on her name and _child of fire, _and shuddered.

"Ka-chan, look at me," he said, and her unwilling gaze was dragged to the man in front of her. His hair and skin shone like moonlight and his dark eyes were as fathomless as the sunless sea. He wore clothing the color of night, and smiled gently. "Yes, here I am. But you must be careful where your eyes wander, darling daughter of disaster. There is so much you're not yet ready for."

Ritsuka stared at him, her skin prickling. His face was smooth and his features fine, but the way he looked at her made the hungry stares of her Servants seem innocent. His shadowed violet gaze seemed like a sheer curtain drawn across obscenities she couldn't even imagine. Unconsciously, she took a step backward.

A cacophony washed over her: the clash of weapons, the screams of horses, and the sobs of the dying. A wind lifted her hair and she shuddered as she realized the space behind her was far more expansive than seemed possible. Dread crept over her, and the sure knowledge that something terrible was back there. It seemed very likely that if she took even one more step back, she'd tumble over a precipice into hell itself.

The man's eyes crinkled as he smiled again. "Don't look," he said softly.

It was too much. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw the impossible battlefield that the throne room became. Women wailed beside dying men and were spit upon the lances of other men. Horses shrieked and fell, crushing riders so that mount and knight screamed in unbroken agony. Fires surged, belching curses into the sky, while those warriors who yet lived fought on, covered with the blood of the fallen.

The horror overwhelmed Ritsuka and she cried out as she turned away rapidly, her shoulders hunched and her head down as she put her arms over her head. Then she was being pulled against a warm chest, muscular arms slipping around her comfortingly. Tears sprang to her eyes in rejection of what she'd seen, of _everything_ she'd seen since that terrible day the world burned.

"Shh, shh," whispered the man. "This is why I had to do what I did, you know. Shh, sweet Ka-chan." He pressed his face into her hair as he murmured soothing nothings, his arms tight around her as she wept. Then his mouth was beside her eye, his tongue flicking over her tears, trailing down her cheek. When he reached her lips, he began to kiss her as if it was the most natural thing in the world. His lips were soft and his tongue delicate as he traced her mouth.

When he effortlessly pushed past her lips, she could feel it as a shock all through her body, as if he'd reached inside her deepest self and split her apart. Ritsuka's eyes widened and her tears dried. His mouth felt so good against hers, and once again the fire of desire raced through her, filling the canyon he'd made with an inferno.

But she wasn't deployed now; she wasn't on a mission; this wasn't for a contract; she was sleeping; she was supposed to be _safe—_

His arms around her were so very strong. She couldn't escape. All she could do was submit.

_All you want to do is submit, _whispered that voice in her soul.

"Hurry and kill him!" hissed an older woman's voice. "Hurry, _hurry!"_

The younger woman said, sounding bored, "Be quiet, mother, or I'll hurt you again."

Ritsuka's chest tightened as the man's teasing tongue made something twist inside her. Dreams of rusty blades against her skin, and how good they'd feel, flashed through her mind. He bit her lip gently and she stiffened at the jolt of pleasure that sheeted through her.

Then he sighed and said, "Ah, Ka-chan, Ka-chan, I've waited so long for you." He lifted his head and smiled at her again. When she gave an instinctive, frightened shove against his chest, he took his arms from her and said, "Don't turn around again, okay? That banquet isn't meant for you."

"Who… who are you?" stammered Ritsuka, clutching her chest as the canyon he'd opened closed again, leaving her feeling a little closer to whole.

"Ah, what a terrible question, Ka-chan. You know the only answer that will matter to you is the one you find yourself. But come with me, and I'll show you my land."

He held out a hand to her in a courtly way, and when she didn't accept it, he smiled again. Then her hand was in his, and he drew her after him to the throne on its mirrored dais. She stared at the reflective surface and balked at the base. "That's not solid. I'll fall in."

"Some do, some do. But not you. Not today. Come, meet another of my pets." The man pulled her up the five steps of the dais and although her feet splashed through the quicksilver surface, she didn't sink.

Her host walked her past the throne, which had a wooden crown with twelve gems tossed carelessly on the seat. Behind the throne was a corridor with the same quicksilver floor and blank wooden walls. At the end of the corridor rose a staircase in a tower, with another cage at its base. This one spanned a whole wall, but all Ritsuka could see within were play structures and the skeletons of mid-sized animals mixed in with bedding material that looked like golden hair.

"Come out, come out, little one," called the man. "Come meet the mistress of calamity. I've told you all about her, haven't I?"

A tiny white creature, no bigger than a kitten, poked its head out from the ribcage of a dog. Then it scampered up one of the play structures and emerged from a tunnel at Ritsuka's eye level. After inspecting her, it said, "Fou?"

"Yes, really, you scamp," said the man. "You may pet him, Ka-chan. He'd like that very much."

Hesitantly, Ritsuka reached two fingers through a wire mesh that didn't seem small enough to contain the small creature. The fur atop his head was warm and silky, and stroking him momentarily made Ritsuka feel somehow more _human_, like she shared something with all those people in the incinerated world who went through life distracted and unafraid.

Then the creature reached up with teensy tiny paws, took her finger between them, and bit down hard.

Once again, she cried out, the sharp pain freezing her up. But her host put his hand on her lower back and the sensation of razor teeth embedded in her finger transformed into something… good. So good. So _hot_. Her entire body _throbbed_ with need. The scent of lilac and lotus enfolded her as her host said, "Thank you, Cath Palug."

The creature chirped rapidly as it released her finger from its jaws, but Ritsuka, dazed by the rush of pain and lust, only had eyes for her host. She reached up to him, pressing her bleeding finger against his mouth. When he looked down at her with enigmatic eyes and licked at her finger, she swayed and whined in the back of her throat at how good it felt.

His hand tightened at her back as he licked her finger again and then sucked at it, making her groan. Then he pulled her hand away, lacing her fingers within his. "Come along, little phoenix of desire. Up the stairs."

Ritsuka gasped as he pulled her after him again, trying to get control over herself. What had happened? He'd touched her and the pain had become… madness.

Her finger no longer hurt. There was no longer any sign it had ever been hurt, and when she tried to remember the pain, she could only remember it as a dry, rational fact. The animal had bitten her, and being bitten like that hurt. Therefore, she had been in pain.

But all she could recall was the pleasure of the penetration of the creature's teeth slicing through her skin and pushing inside her.

_Madness._

The stairs followed the wall of the tower, and her host walked steadily up them, her hand in his. Ritsuka felt no fatigue from their steady climb, but the higher they got, the more her normal doubt and fear reasserted itself. At last, her head was clear enough that she balked, pulling her hand free as she stopped.

"Please tell me what's going on?" she asked softly.

He looked back at her and smiled again. "You're dreaming. You know you are." When she didn't move, he sighed, pushing a strand of her hair away from her face. "You're destined to give your body to a thousand spirits, but your dreams, sweet Ka-chan… those are mine."

Ritsuka blinked, fear and shameful excitement both making her stomach clench. "A thousand spirits…?"

Her host rolled his eyes humorously. "Give or take a few. Destiny counts poorly, you know." He tilted his head and stroked her face, and his fingers were cool and pleasant despite her fear.

Then she was holding his hand again as they walked up the stairs, higher and higher, until at last they came to a door. A simple door, with no lock and the most basic of handles. At his nod, she opened it.

Beyond was a round room, with eight windows in the curving wall, and a bed in the center. The bed was simple, as the door had been simple: a mattress on a heavy wooden frame, with a violet blanket over pillows. That was all.

It was just a bed.

"This is your land?" Ritsuka asked uncertainly.

"This is your room," her host corrected. "My land lies beyond the tower."

"Why… why do I have a room here?" It was a terrifying proposition. This place made Chaldea seem friendly and comforting.

"You know why." He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles lingeringly. When she opened her eyes again, she stood next to the bed, her hand still at his lips.

Her breath came hard and fast, and she pulled her hand away from him once more. "No." She looked around frantically. The door had closed, and the ground glimpsed beyond the windows seemed very far away.

"You're afraid, Ka-chan, but you don't need to be," her host said in amusement. "I like you far too much to use you up so quickly. I have so much I need you for."

"You're a liar," she muttered. "A thousand spirits… Heroic Spirits?" She thought of the hungry eyes back at Chaldea and shuddered. "You're a liar."

His soft gaze sharpened. "You've already let the Sage of the Forest come inside you. And for what?"

Somehow she was in his arms and he was kissing her neck. Her nipples, painfully hard, brushed against his chest and she moaned.

"Because you enjoyed it, Ka-chan." He kissed her ear. "You let him lie to you. You let him use you. Because you _wanted_ to be violated. Stretched. _Filled_. I promise you, you'll enjoy what I do to you, too."

And, oh god, she did. Every flick of his tongue, every movement of his hands, the way his body pressed against hers and his mouth moved against her skin. His breath in her hair as he whispered her name.

Then he pulled away and they stood beside the bed still. She swayed, but caught herself with a stumble.

"Do you have a name for me yet?" he asked her, with his smile only at the corners of his eyes.

Her dream whispered to her, and she repeated the words numbly, staring at the floor instead of him. "Merlin Alter."

He laughed long and loud, and when he stopped. "Alter. I like that. I can be that for you, Ka-chan. Now, go to the window, and look, and see where you are."

Slowly, but under her own will and her own power, Ritsuka turned to the brightest window and went to see a twilight land, where something dark flew against the sun.

_He walked out on the battlefield at Camlann, and the battle ended, and with it human independence. There was never another war. Throughout the land, people lead quiet lives. He walks through the dreams of his subjects and the evil he carries with him makes even the most innocent of dreams into nightmares. He makes both pleasure and pain a terror because they court his attention. He can so easily turn one to another. Or he can pass on by. Even if your leg is caught in a bear trap on a winter's day, pray he passes by. That which his attention falls on is never the same again. They're lost in dreams, or they're dead, called away, or broken. Sometimes nobles scheme, and armies are raised. He allows this. But no battle has ever been fought to completion, and no army has ever returned home._

Ritsuka woke up in her own bed at Chaldea, to a tiny tongue licking her face. "What…?" she said groggily.

"Good morning, Senpai," said Mash cheerfully. "We have a new friend today, and it seems like he likes you very much!"

Ritsuka focused, pushing away the tiny tongue. Two teensy-tiny paws caught her finger, and licked more.

She stared down at Fou, horror prickling down her spine. "How… what? What is this? How did he get here?"

"I don't know," said Mash happily. "We found him this morning in the halls. Da Vinci says I should take care of him until we figure out why he's here. Since he likes you too, won't you help me, senpai?"

Ritsuka glanced up into her kohai's eyes, shining as they'd never shone before, and then down at the kitten-sized creature sitting in the palm of her hand. He looked up at her with eyes that seemed to know everything, every secret she had, every dream she escaped.

"Fou? Fou." He jumped onto her shoulder, curling his fluffy tail around her neck.

"Senpai?" said Mash, worry darkening her voice.

And she knew: all she could do was submit.


	5. 4 A Flame in the Night pt 2

Olga Marie stood naked in front of the mirror in her room, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her eyes closed.

_Come on,_ _Marie, _said the voice in Olga Marie's soul. _It's my body too, now. I deserve to see it properly. I mean, I only just saved your life and all._

"I know," whispered Olga Marie. "Just… give me a minute."

_I don't know what you're so scared of. I already know how nice it feels._

"That, damn you!" she snapped. The voice in her soul only snickered in response. Then something shifted in her sense of bodily awareness and her hands against her breasts flexed under someone else's control. She felt like she was touching somebody's breasts, and somebody was touching hers, a deeply disorienting experience that her savior had already tormented her with more than a few times since returning to Chaldea.

Desperate to distract him before he went exploring more again, she opened her eyes, meeting her own ember gaze. As soon as she did she started helplessly trying to finger comb her tangled mane of ashen hair, which she hadn't properly fixed since the explosion. It hadn't seemed to matter while she was confined to her bed, but Doctor Romani had told her she could get up today and he'd be coming by to see her soon. She _had_ to take a shower—

_Just a minute, princess…_ _I'm still looking. That really is a fine pair of tits you have. And those hips. _He seized control of one of Olga Marie's hands and moved it down to her backside, sliding her palm against her sensitive skin in a way that made her hiss and close her eyes. She'd never realized how soft her skin was, and how perfectly her backside curved into her smooth hand. Unconsciously, her other hand moved to her breast, curving under it as her thumb stroked her hardening peak. Faint blue glyphs began to appear all over her skin, like somebody had decided to torment her by scribbling all over her with a ultraviolet marker.

_Woohoo, now that is hot!_ crowed the voice. Olga Marie realized what she'd once again started doing, flushed from her hairline down to her ribcage and ignored his murmurs to flee to her bathroom.

She kept strict control of herself in the shower, only lingering despite herself over soaping her breasts and her shoulders. Getting clean. Getting herself together. Though everything had gone horribly wrong, she was still Olga Marie Animusphere and Chaldea was _her _responsibility. No matter what, no matter what, _no matter what_, she had to fix this. Not that she could. How could she? Everything was already gone—

_Marie_,said the voice in her soul, calm against her growing panic as she huddled in the bathroom under a stream of hot water, her fingers clenched in her dripping hair.

"My name is Olga Marie, damn you!_" _she snapped fretfully. Only her loved ones had the right to nickname her. Only her loved ones—

_Lev Lainur called you Olga_._ Fuck him._

-and who did she have like that? Who had ever loved her?

"I depended on him… I should have known better. _I should have known better_. I should have known! I should have known he was just using me!" Olga Marie pounded the floor so hard her fists hurt and then stopped, her arms wrapping around herself as tears and snot mingled with the shower water running down her face.

She rocked back into the corner of the cubicle as she sobbed, her hands holding her shoulder and hip."I should have known. I wanted _so much_ to matter to somebody. He made me think I could." A thought struck her and she snorted with a choking, toxic laughter. "And I did, didn't I? My incompetence burned the world." She itched to claw her face, rend her hair, but her hands didn't move.

"Stop it, let me go! Why did you save me? Why are you doing this to me? Haven't I done enough?"

_You wanted to live_, said the voice in her soul, amused._ I granted your wish._

She realized in indignation that her _savior_ was _laughing _at her distress. "Well, wasn't that stupid of you? Who would save the life of somebody responsible for _destroying the world_?"

_Call me Avenger._ _And you would, princess. You know you would._ Her hands released her and stretched out, her fingers wiggling. _Yeah, that asshole made a mistake blaming _you. _All the evils of the world? They're _mine_. And now you and I are one._

Her hands wrapped around her body again. _And if you think I'm letting a body this hot die just because you're in a bad mood_, _you're nuts._ She rose to her feet. _Come on, let's go back to bed and I'll distract you some more until you feel better._

A fresh panic surged through Olga Marie, a mundane one that completely replaced the existential one. "No! No, Doctor Romani is coming, I have to get ready!" She rinsed herself off once more, scrambled out of the shower, and set about finding clothes and putting her hair in order.

She was just finishing her side-braid when Romani knocked and then partially opened her door. "Director? How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine!" she said quickly, her fingers tangling as she screwed up twisting the hair tie and the entire braid unraveled. The hair tie spanged across the room and Romani bent to pick it up as he stepped within. He had a faint smile as he handed it to her.

"You look great, especially for somebody, well—you can't imagine how happy I am to see you moving around again. I want to check a few things before I officially sign your bill of health. After that…" he hesitated. "After that we have something we should talk about."

Dread curled in Olga Marie's stomach, but she sat primly on the bed as he took a seat in her desk chair. "Of course. We have _so_ much to talk about. So much to do! We have to—"

Romani picked up her wrist so he could check her pulse, and she forgot what she was saying at the warmth of his touch. She sat quietly as he evaluated her vitals, her mind fizzing gently. Each time she had a thought, his fingers moved: from her wrist to her chin as he checked her eyes, from her chin to her shoulder as he listened to her lungs. He never did anything that deviated from a comfortable bedside manner… so why was Avenger laughing his ass off inside her head?

_Humans are pretty much shit at hiding things from me. Dirty, guilty things, anyhow._ He cackled some more. _He's being such a good guy now, but later he's going to think about you while he—_

Olga Marie coughed violently, bringing her hands up to her ears, and Doctor Romani jumped, sitting back. "Are you all right? Everything looks good—"

"I'm fine!" she declared again. "I'm fine!" She couldn't help giving the doctor a searching look, though. He was such a lazy, annoying, _moralizing_ common kind of man. Not like…

She swallowed the lump rising in her throat and gave the doctor her most imperious stare. "Do I have my doctor's permission to return to my duties?" Once, she wouldn't even have asked, because who could tell an Animisphere their responsibility but an Animusphere? But now, after the worst had happened, she was desperately afraid of inventing a new low.

Romani sat back in his chair, putting his hand behind his head and laughing in that easy, unaffected way he had. "Well, that's what we have to talk about. Do you know why you survived the explosion, Director?"

"I didn't," said Olga Marie reluctantly. "I was…" she trailed off suddenly, thinking of what had happened from Romani's perspective. "Oh. Did you see my… my body?"

His mouth twisted in a pained expression. "I identified your remains. And when the Rayshift back to Chaldea took hold, they disappeared from where they'd been stored and reappeared inside one of the Rayshift Coffins, where you started… reconstituting yourself into a living body again. Subsequent scans showed us that like Mash, you too have been melded with a Heroic Spirit."

Once again, Avenger started laughing in her head. "What?" she demanded angrily.

Romani frowned. "You don't know about this? I'd hoped—"

"Oh, I do," said Olga Marie tightly. "He's laughing like a baboon right now. I have no idea why."

The doctor's eyebrows drew together. "Ah. He? Ah…"

"Yes, _he_. Very definitely a _he_," said Olga Marie. "So much of a _he_ that _he_—" She turned scarlet as she realized she'd been about to confess what Avenger had been doing to her every time she'd woken up the past two days. "He says he's Avenger. If Mash is Shielder, I suppose that means _I'm_ Avenger now." She sighed. "I suppose that's all you can do once the world is ashes. Avenge it. I'm going to murder that asshole Lev."

"Uh," said Romani, blinking. "You're…" He laughed again, but this time it was nervous.

…_really hot_, suggested Avenger, and Olga Marie made fists with her hands.

"Spit it out, doctor! I don't have all day."

"You're sharper," said Romani simply. "Avenger suits you."

"Oh," she said, and started fiddling with her braid while looking at the doctor's hands. Then she put her hands properly in her lap and said, "Idiot! Of course it does, or I wouldn't be one!"

He chuckled. "There's the Olga Marie I remember. All right, if you understand what you are, I hope you'll understand what I've done."

"What?" she asked suspiciously.

Meeting her gaze steadily, he said, "You're still dead, Olga Marie. At least as far as the records are concerned. There's nobody to look at them now, but eventually there will be. I don't want to record you as alive until you've had time to think about what the consequences of that will be." He paused just long enough for her to remember Mash's condition when she'd arrived. And Mash's incarnation as a demi-Servant had been started under controlled circumstances. She hadn't bonded with a wild spirit encountered in a Singularity. "You aren't what you were. You may never be that again. If the Mage's Association has their say, you _definitely_ won't."

"_Those_ people_," _Marie said broodingly, but Romani held up a hand.

"I'm not done. The records can be sorted out later. What you need to think about _now_ is whether Olga Marie Animusphere is still the Director of Chaldea."

"What?" she demanded, bristling. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Romani didn't answer, his eyes intent on her face.

"I'm still me, Doctor Annoying," she said, but she could hear her own uncertainty.

"Do you want to be?"

The words hit her like a bolt of lightning, so quick and hard they took her breath away. Did she _want_ to be? How could she be anything else? She was Olga Marie Animusphere, and all this mess was _her fault._

_Once again the horror and the panic rose up, sweeping over her. She was a failure. She'd disappointed everybody and now there was nobody left to disappoint. Even people with _no right_ to be disappointed in her thought she was the worst, the most useless, the most incompetent—_

Avenger stood up. "I'll think about it, Doctor. But for now, I'd like to get a bit more rest. I'll see you this evening."

Roman looked up at her, his eyes narrowing. Then he too stood up. "All for the best. You've got a lot to recover from. Rebuilding your body like that…. amazing." He shook his head and went to the door and then looked back at her. "You'll be all right alone? Mash and Ritsuka are eager to visit you."

Avenger grinned as Olga Marie rocked back and forth inside her head, trying to scream herself out of sobbing and back into control. "I'll be just fine. I know exactly how to take care of myself."

After another hesitation, Romani gave a quick nod and departed. Avenger's grin immediately vanished.

The human mind was enormously flexible. Avenger knew that from experience. It could process and accept _anything_ eventually. Marie _would_ come to accept the truth of her new position, along with her new powers. Her guardian spirit just had to keep her sane until that marvelous brain of her finished getting her there.

She sighed as she started undressing again. "Come on, princess. Back to bed we go. We have a lot more interesting things to do than panic about the fuckheads who betrayed you."

_No_, said Olga Marie faintly, a blush turned into a word.

Avenger unbuttoned the blouse, admiring herself in the mirror as she did. "It's your body. If you want me to stop, all you have to do is stop. Just like in the shower." Avenger paused, cocking an internal ear, and heard only Marie's little sigh, as he'd heard it so many times over the past two days.

Grinning again, he admired the view in the mirror one last time before turning to tuck himself and his princess back into bed, where he'd distract her—and himself—for just as long as she needed.


	6. 5 A Flame in the Night pt 2-5

**A/N:**

_I meant for the next thing I posted to be a chapter about Karna and Ka-chan. But instead, immediately after posting the previous chapter, I started noodling at this—which is clearly the smuttier second half of the previous chapter. Enjoy._

* * *

Olga Marie lay in her bed, staring at the darkened ceiling, and let Avenger move her hands over her body. It was strange and disorienting at first, like looking through two different telescopes at once. As a result, the sensations completely dominated her attention, making it very hard for her to think about anything else. That, he said, was the point. It took a lot of focus and effort to really tear herself to shreds. While Avenger couldn't control her thoughts, he could certainly _distract_ them. She couldn't even fight back.

_Keep telling yourself that, princess. Meanwhile, close your eyes_, Avenger whispered to her. Sighing, she obeyed, slipping very quickly into a trance state only slightly removed from dreaming. In this state her sensory input _did_ split, into what _he_ felt and what _she_ felt. The hands that massaged her breasts were soft, thin, feminine hands, but at least they weren't _her _hands making her feel so breathless and excited.

For Olga Marie's sense of decency and self-respect, this was both better and worse. On the one hand, it didn't feel like she was doing this to herself, while the world lay shattered beyond her door. But on the other hand, it meant she was allowing _somebody else_ to touch her like this, over and over and over, while the world lay shattered beyond her door.

The trance wasn't as bad as it could get, either. Sometimes she slipped even further into a dream state and then _he_ was more than a pair of feminine hands. He was present with her, straddling her hips, rubbing his palms over her nipples, grinning like a shark as he played with her. She _hated_ it when that happened, and yet somehow it seemed to happen more and more.

Even now she could feel what she _knew_ rationally to be her own hands roughening and growing into his. Then he was _there_, his weight on her pelvis. When something warm and wet closed over one of her nipples, her back arched and she swallowed a lewd sound. This was a dream, _just_ a dream, inflicted on her by the wicked spirit possessing her. It wasn't real. She'd wake herself up and get out of bed and go do something—

_Nah,_ _not yet_, whispered Avenger, which he did very well given that his dream self had her breast in his mouth. She squirmed, rubbing her thighs together under his weight, and tried to move her arms to push him away. But her hands wouldn't move. Somehow he'd pinned them down, and the enforced helplessness only made her squirm more at the intensity of the pleasure being inflicted on her.

She wanted… she wanted, oh she _wanted_… she wanted him to touch her _more_. She wanted him to rub her between her legs. She wanted this creature's wicked mouth all over her, leaving wet trails behind. But she wanted to be a _good girl_, too, the sort who was petted and praised and celebrated. And here _he_ was, making her into a bad one. It was terrifying and delicious and degenerate. She whined in the back of her throat despite her best intentions.

_You're so fucking hot_, Avenger told her. _Why weren't you surrounded by people trying to get into your pants?_

"Far… far too busy for that nonsense," Olga Marie mumbled, and then gave a keening squeal as something sharp pinched her nipple. The humiliation of her sound made her skin prickle hotly, and she hunched her shoulders as if to escape it.

In response, he ran his finger tips up her arms, leaving shivers in place of the prickles. Then he dug his fingers into her long hair fanned out around her head, stroking through it with his nails. She shook her head fretfully and he caught her head, held it still so he could kiss each of her eyelids gently.

_Gotta say, I'm really enjoying saving you_. _Good call, me, _he told her. His fingers caressed around her ears and then he was licking her lobe as his hands continued down her body, between her breasts and over her stomach.

She wriggled in uncontrollable anticipation, well-spiced with shame and guilt. As his fingers slid between her folds and stroked the core of her heat, excitement transmuted into a silver pleasure that tolled through her like a bell. Once again her spine arched, but she bared her teeth, refusing to let him hear how good it felt.

His wet tongue at her ear was replaced by his teeth and then he snickered. _Whatever keeps you going, Marie. But believe me, I know how good this feels._

He moved his fingers in slow circles, indirectly pressing against her clit, and his mouth moved back to her breast again. For what seemed like a long time, he held her there, nearly mindlessly riding the steady ripples of pleasure he elicited.

_Ahh, you're falling asleep for real_, he said eventually. _Time to make sure it's a good one._

Alarm chased away sleepy bliss and once again Olga Marie wriggled, trying to escape what came next. It was useless, as it was always useless. He'd have his way with her and leave her too spent to focus on other forms of self-abuse. But at least it was all a dream. It wasn't _real_. _He_ was real, no doubt about that, but he didn't have a body, this _wasn't happening_. It was all a dream.

"This is all a dream," she announced, as calm as ice.

_I've been thinking about getting us some toys,_ he said as his bare feet pushed Olga Marie's ankles apart. _You looked at a catalog once, yeah?_

The ice shattered. Olga Marie almost wailed in rage and embarrassment, and then found her hands long enough to pound hard at the tattooed chest above her instead. "Human history has been _incinerated_, you _monster_!"

Grinning down at her, Avenger lowered himself until his weight pressed her into the bed and something hard nudged between her legs. In her ear he whispered, _So you're saying we can probably find a toy somewhere in Chaldea. Something missing its previous owner._

Olga Marie _howled_ as she remembered the flash of light from Lev's bomb, and the faces of all her associates around her. Twenty-seven people had been crowded into the command chamber to witness history. It had been Olga Marie's most hopeful moment, when she let herself momentarily think that she wasn't the world's biggest screw-up.

And Lev Lainur had destroyed it.

Avenger captured her scream in his mouth as he kissed her, keeping anybody else from hearing, worrying, _wasting their time_. The kiss wasn't real, she _knew_ it wasn't real, but her rage and shame and hurt for herself; her fury and grief for her companions; her _hatred_ for Lev, so violent her body shook… Those were real. Those burned inside her constantly, and she _screamed._

As her scream faded, he lifted his mouth, letting her drag in a great gasping breath. As she did, terrifying words rose in her throat: words from a world where you could scream like that and nothing would change. She would gabble about just how awful she was, how weak, how shallow! Because, honest truth? Out of everything Lev hurt, the hurt that drove her the most was to her _pride_. What drove her forward now, in the wake of cataclysm? Not grief, not justice, not duty, not even hope—

_Vengeance,_ he whispered and thrust his hardness within her.

It slicked in, seeming to fill her, eclipsing her self-hatred and pushing her bad thoughts momentarily off the stage, with a tickle inside her like the thrill of a roller coaster going down.

_Yeah_, he said, moving a little as if settling in. And yet he was already so deep inside her that Olga Marie felt like every twitch of his hips was wired directly to her spine. She gritted her teeth, impatient for this ridiculous _dream_ to be over.

_There we go, _he whispered and found _just_ the right place, the place that made Olga Marie bite her lip bloody at the spike of pleasure hammered into her mind.

_How's that for real?_

Slowly, he began to move his hips, setting up a delicate, pleasant friction between the two of them. It played against her rising grief and hurt and rage, melody to harmony, creating the song of her Servant self. His hot body moved against hers, and against the potent knife of her self-recriminations. The surge of pleasure rippling through her frame was a star against the darkness of shame. She needed them both, especially now. It was the distance between the two that gave a Servant power.

_I _really_ like this part,_ he said. _Where I screw you—_

"Nail,"said Olga Marie dreamily. "You're nailing me." Her eyes opened and she stared up into his smile. "I really am worthless failure, though."

_Totally_, he said agreeably, and began to kiss her again, in a much nicer way than before. She was. She was totally worthless. An utter failure. She accepted it. But his kiss felt so good. Not like _drive her crazy_ good, but like _hot chocolate on a cold day_ good. Like the sort of good even a worthless person could enjoy, if someone was kind.

That was his kiss alone. But his hips changed everything. If his kiss was the violin trembling in her ear, the way he fucked her was the pounding pulse of an entire heavy metal band. Together, they swept her away, beyond sight or reason. She lay in the farthest reaches of a field of pleasure, basking for what seemed like ages, and yet—and yet—

_so shameful_, Olga Marie whispered to herself,_ after what happened_

She tumbled beyond the edge of bliss with a scream that should have changed worlds, a scream her lover swallowed once again.

After which she _instantly_ fell asleep, into that deep sleep where the filing's done, memories are digested and pain is allowed to fade. Meanwhile, _he_ was left to wait, bound by her healing sleep to silence, immobility and boredom, with nothing but his own cold memories to occupy him.


	7. 6 Valley of Shadows pt 2

The fascinating ecology of Chaldea started when Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, was caught sneaking into Ritsuka Fujimaru's bedroom in the middle of the night. The Avenger demi-servant Olga Marie arrived first, followed by the Shielder Mash, and then, well, Blackbeard was no longer a problem.

After, as the chaos settled, Leonardo da Vinci knelt next to the pool of blue fluid that was all that remained of the pirate. Frowning, she tasted it before saying, "This is a valuable resource. Nobody touch it until I can put something together to collect it."

Romani and da Vinci called it _recycling_ (but everybody else called it _burning) _and da Vinci explained it very simply: The magical resource used to summon Servants, saint quartz, was both rare and indivisible. Breaking a saint quartz just meant the magic escaped, leaving some useless shards of stone.

But when a Servant shattered, a fraction of the magic used to maintain them condensed into that blue liquid, which they collected into _mana prisms_. It turned out to be a very valuable resource for operating Chaldea and providing mission support. And so, brightly, da Vinci issued the instruction:

"If we get any other useless Servants, make sure to recycle them, too!"

That led to other discoveries. For example, when one Servant _recycled_ another, they got a tiny potential power boost in the form of quantum particles. These accumulated around a Servant, and could eventually be catalyzed into a permanent upgrade to their power level. This they called _ascension._

It turned out quantum particles could be accumulated in a number of ways. It happened naturally on missions. Summoning rituals released a concentrated burst, too. Yes, there were plenty of quantum particles to be acquired. The trick, it turned out, was turning that potential power into a real upgrade. The more powerful a Servant was, the harder it was to find a catalyst that worked.

Da Vinci worked on it in her spare time, but she pointed out every time somebody asked that she didn't really have very much of that, even taking into account never sleeping. If only there was another way, she complained, all the way into the early days of the Orleans Singularity.

It took quite a while before she admitted that, actually, there was.

* * *

Like all the Servants, Karna, Hero of Charity, had watched his Master closely since he was summoned. He knew her favorite foods. He knew the songs she hummed when she forgot she was being observed. He knew how little sleep she got, and how fast she could run a mile. And he knew how she reacted when Servants tried to touch her. He'd watched as she sat, paralyzed, as Fionn slid his arm around her waist. The foolish Irish king had ignored Mash's warning and Olga Marie hadn't been there.

When Mash had kicked Fionn away, Karna had been there with his spear, and Beowulf and Stheno and Cú Lancer. "Don't worry, sweetheart," Cú Lancer had said, as the blue-gold fluid remains of Fionn pooled around their feet. "You've got plenty of Lancers."

As the mana prism wetvac trundled out from the wall, she'd lowered shocked eyes to her plate, hunching her shoulders in a way that told everybody she wasn't any happier about her lunch being spoiled by violence. The Servants watching took note, and later executions happened when she wasn't around.

She shone like a glass bird with a plasma core: afraid of fire but already beyond it. Though she was fragile, she was capable of anchoring uncounted Servants. Anybody who threatened to shatter the bird had to be crushed, for the good of humanity.

And now, for the good of humanity, da Vinci wanted him to risk doing that himself.

* * *

Ritsuka sat in her bedroom, looking at the Servant kneeling before her. She and Mash and Olga Marie had been playing with some nail polish Marie had liberated from somewhere when Karna had knocked. He'd warned her he'd be coming by to speak to her, which is one reason she had her friends there. But she'd been so caught up in the moment she'd actually forgot his planned visit. Now, still giddy and breathless with laughter, she curled her fingers in her lap as he spoke with his usual blunt, uncomfortable straightforwardness.

"There's something we've been keeping from you, Master, and it's time you knew." His calm gaze didn't even flicker as he said, "There is a sex rite between Master and Servant that can be used in place of physical artifacts to catalyze Servant ascension."

Ritsuka stiffened, her eyes searching his expressionless face and then turning toward Olga Marie. The Avenger demi-Servant laughed that edged laugh she had sometimes. "Mr. Charity never lies."

"That makes sense," said Mash thoughtfully, looking at her violet fingernails. "That explains a few things. But how did you find out about it?"

This too Karna answered smoothly. "It's installed knowledge, although I understand that Servants summoned in the beginning were imbued with the knowledge a little before Orleans."

"Why… why are you telling me?" Ritsuka stared hard at the Servant who had never looked at her like she was meat, but who had always scared her for an entirely different reason. _Child of the Sun_.

"I've absorbed all the quantum particles I can for now, and da Vinci tells me the physical catalysts I need have yet to be pinpointed." He met her gaze steadily. "She also tells me future battles are likely to be far more challenging than what we faced in Orleans."

"Oh," she said nervously. "You want to…"

"I want you to understand the choices." He rose gracefully to his feet. "I believe you'll want some time to think about this."

Ritsuka _did_, she really did. She wanted all the time in the world to think about it, or rather _not_ think about it, to pretend he'd never come to her room, that she'd never summoned him, that the world hadn't been burned.

But it had.

And she had Mash and Olga Marie anyhow: friends she could laugh with. If she wanted to keep them, she couldn't _allow_ herself time. She'd only find a way to run away.

"Wait! Wait… I want to… talk about it with you more." She swallowed her fear and glanced at Mash.

As usual, Mash understood her intentions perfectly. "Would you like me to stay, senpai?"

Ritsuka shook her head. "I don't want to do that to you. I… I can handle this by myself. I might _have_ to someday. So I should."

Olga Marie gathered up the nail polish set. "Hrmph. I'm certainly not staying if Mash isn't. It's not like a goody-two-shoes like Karna is going to actually do anything wrong." Then, looking at Ritsuka from the side of her eye, she added, "But if he does, don't forget your Command spells, idiot. We can be here instantly."

Karna remained standing as the two young women filed past him out of the Master's bedroom, meeting both Mash's cold gaze and Olga Marie's burning one. They were both weak Servants compared to him, but Ritsuka knew they'd both fight to the death for her if she needed it.

She wouldn't need it, though. Not against Karna. If he wanted to hurt her, he was far too powerful to stop.

As the door closed behind her friends, Ritsuka's eyes stayed fixed on her bare knees, toying with the hem of her shorts. After a moment, Karna said, "Master?"

Clearing her throat, without looking up, she said, "How does the rite work?"

He paused before answering, as if gathering his thoughts. "Imagine that each of us have a circuit that can be closed by having sex, but only with our Master. Simply closing the circuit might condense a few quantum particles into a temporary boost in power, but for anything permanent, it must be mutually pleasurable. At least, that is the theory as I understand it." He spoke calmly, as he always did. He might have been discussing the weather, or his last duel.

She glanced up and then down again. "In our first Singularity, where Olga Marie… well, anyhow, in Fuyuki, Cú Chulainn, the Caster, he… he told me about a ritual too. And we did it."

She shook her head in frustration, remembering her nervous pleasure at the time, and her shame later, after Merlin Alter had told her what Cú had later confirmed to be the truth: that he hadn't quite needed the mana transfer nearly as much as he'd let her believe.

"I do believe Marie that you're telling the truth. I do." She glanced up at him, anxious that he didn't feel like his honesty was being impugned. He looked back at her, his gaze calm, and she looked down, flustered at even having this very private conversation with him.

Almost mumbling to herself, she said, "He at least tried to make it nice for me. He told me everything he was going to do and that helped a lot." She swallowed. "So please… tell me what you'd do?"

He moved, kneeling down directly in front of her. "What do you want me to do?"

The question almost sent her into a panic. "I don't know! Don't… don't hurt me. Don't lie to me." _Don't burn me._

Moving slowly, he put his hands on her knees. His hands were warm and dry, and the lightest and gentlest of touches. "I'm bad with words, Master. Lying to you would be beyond my abilities."

Even on his knees before her, their eyes were almost level until he sat back on his heels, his thumbs sliding over her knees before his fingers glided down the back of her calves. "I think I would start by touching you gently, as if you were an unbroken horse." He lowered his head, concentrating on her feet as he cupped her heels in his palms. "I would hope you could grow more comfortable with me, comfortable enough to stroke my hair."

Hesitantly, she touched his white hair, running her fingers through fluffy softness that had reminded her of clouds of ash but was in truth far more beautiful. His head moved under her hand, like a cat leaning into scratching, but he kept his eyes down, his fingers moving lightly over her feet and ankles.

"Like this?" she asked.

He looked up at her so that her hand trailed along the side of his face. Her fingers brushed over his cheekbone, down to the corner of his mouth and along his throat to his necklace before he said, "Yes, like that."

Ritsuka froze, afraid of doing the wrong thing by lifting her hand away, and even more afraid of touching him further. But all he did was lower his head again, lifting one of her feet. Furtively, Ritsuka put her hand back on his hair again, once more stroking him like a cat.

After a moment of simply holding her foot, he began to rub his strong fingers along the edges of her sole and around her heel. She felt the massage not just along the muscles of her foot but in her calf and knee: a delicious _loosening_ as his fingers lifted away both tension and the first layer of her fear.

"What… what is this?" she asked breathlessly.

He moved his hands to her other foot and once again each stroke of his fingers spiraled up her leg to her knee, and then further. She could feel her shoulders loosening, too.

"Nothing very much," he said softly. "It helps me as I think on what I would do. I really am not good with words." He glanced up. "Would you like me to stop?"

"Oh," she said. "You… you can keep thinking. I don't mind."

He tilted his head against her hand again. "Are you sure you won't touch me more, Master? I don't mind that either." With a half-smile, he said, "I've heard my body can put people off."

Ritsuka took the implied invitation to look over him, from the spiked collar around his neck to the gems embedded in his chest and the skin-like black and gold bodysuit he wore. Very gently, she pressed her finger into one of the spikes on his collar, and then yanked her hand away as it bit into her skin like tiny fangs.

"Why do you wear that?" she asked in a tiny voice.

Karna raised a hand to the collar. "I suppose it symbolizes my connection to my father." As he touched it, it fuzzed into gold light and vanished. "It comes off."

"You don't actually know?"

Karna gave her a wry smile as he returned to rubbing her foot. "I didn't design this version of my father's armor. I personally suspect da Vinci of modifying our patterns in the system, but I don't really _know_ why any of us look the way we do."

"Oh," said Ritsuka, and her fingers drifted down his chest, just a little, to where the bodysuit began. She touched the thin, oddly hard fabric and once again pulled away, her face flushing. "Still thinking?"

When he didn't answer, she added, "I thought you'd know exactly what to do. Haven't you…" She trailed off, pressing her hands against hot cheeks, thinking about how he'd never looked at her like most of the others did.

He glanced up at her again with a little smile. "I have. But this isn't the same. My brides weren't terrified."

The casual observation instantly made Ritsuka shut down. She pulled her feet away from him, up into the chair, and huddled around her knees, all her fears of men, closed rooms, lies, danger, pain, _trusting, _flaring up again. Karna straightened his spine, his hands resting curled on his legs, watching her with an alien calm.

She peeped at him over her arms as her fear scritched across her skin, twisting in her spine, underscoring everything bad. He was overwhelmingly powerful, capable of sudden and shocking violence. She was alone with him. He could simply _take_ whatever he wanted. She couldn't fight. She couldn't hide. Even if she got away from him, where could she go? Chaldea was full of entities just like him, and somehow they were all anchored to _her_. It meant they could find her anywhere. It meant she could never escape.

She'd practically been carried through the Orleans Singularity by them: by Cú Caster, who hadn't touched her again after she'd confronted him, and by his grinning Lancer twin; by vicious Beowulf and poisonous Stheno; by Jeanne d'Arc and Georgios, and, eventually, by Karna. They needed her physical body's proximity to fight at their best, and her soul as their anchor to the world. It didn't matter if she was afraid, or mad, or shattered. In the end, only Mash and Olga Marie cared about _that_.

And Jeanne… Jeanne had been very kind. Within the Singularity, only Jeanne, and later her altered twin, had required a temporary contract. That hadn't been so bad. Neither of them had wanted anything more from her than a kiss. She missed them now that they'd returned to the Throne of Heroes.

But after every draining fight, the others looked at her she was _theirs_. She hadn't seen what had happened to the dragon girl Servant who tried to climb naked into her bedroll, but she still _knew_. Her Servants were killers, each and every one. And the thing about killers was that it only took one wrong move to make them kill her, too.

This was the daily refrain of her ordinary fears, the fears that faded down almost to silence when she exchanged smiles with Mash while Olga Marie complained about something trivial. It wasn't like her fear of fire. She associated Karna with fire, but he was the child of the sun.

As her fears simmered down from their sudden boil, Ritsuka distantly remembered that the sun could be so _comfortable_. A killer, yes, but there had been summer days at her first group home when the sun had come out and they'd gone to the beach or the pool, or once, the zoo. Although she couldn't remember details, the _feeling_ of that day was the same way she felt when she giggled at Mash, or stroked a dozing Olga Marie's hair.

Karna was nothing like that. Her skin prickled with a constant sense of danger around him. Her stomach would hurt when she realized he'd been staring at her. She'd had to frame this as _talking_ even to begin, and she'd only been able to do that while empowered by laughing with her friends only minutes before. That sense of empowerment had faded fast, and now here she was, alone.

He watched her silently, as still as a statue. The only way she could tell he was breathing was from the glints in his gem changing as his chest rose and fell. She wondered how long he'd sit there, being patient with her fears. A while, perhaps. She remembered his patience from Orleans. But eventually, his patience with her would run out.

Ritsuka lifted her head, watching his quiet form. It occurred to her that she could try being brave, now, before he lost that patience. Olga Marie had been brave, back in Fuyuki, and she was absolutely fearless now. She wanted to be more like Olga Marie.

Slowly, she unfolded, putting her legs back on the floor again. "You were telling me what you'd do in this rite."

Moving slowly, he once again put his hands on her legs, this time sliding his hands from her calves to her knees. "I'd do whatever was necessary to close the circuit."

His hands curved over her knees, hotter than before, and continued up her legs, his thumbs stroking her inner thighs in a way that sent shivers down her spine. When the tips of his fingers disappeared under her shorts, he stopped, but leaned forward, until he was close to her ear. "I'd watch you. What made you flinch. How you breathed." He slid his fingers over her shorts and further up her thighs. "When I saw you treating this like a battle—" His nose in her hair, he inhaled her scent. "—I'd win."

A shudder rippled down Ritsuka's body, all the way to her toes, followed by a second one that clenched her thighs as Karna shifted away from her ear. His eyes, previously so calm, seemed to glow. The alien calm had vanished; this was Karna ready to kill, the child of the sun as warrior, not saint.

His mouth closed over hers for the barest instant, not a kiss so much as a statement of intent. Then, his eyes burning, he said, "Put your hands on me."

Nervousness and the tension in her thighs made Ritsuka obedient. She put both her hands on his shoulders, pressing her fingers into lines of overheated corded muscle. He smiled as he lowered his head. Guessing at what he wanted, she ran one hand around his neck and up through his hair again. In her heightened state of nerves, the silky strands were almost unbearably soft.

Then her hand tightened into a fist as his hands ran up her stomach and he unbuttoned her shorts. "I'd take off your clothes."

Ritsuka's fingers tightened more in his hair and his breath hissed as he tilted his head back. She brushed her fingers across his exposed throat and then down his chest to the red gem embedded there. Its heat pulsed against her palm,

Karna dug his hands into her hips, lifting her from the chair as he flowed to his feet. Her grip on his hair tightened as she almost overbalanced and in response his arms crushed her against him. His body felt absolutely feverish. Then he was lowering her to the bed, his burning gaze inescapable. Ritsuka didn't dare let go of his hair. He tugged off her shorts, leaving her in her panties.

Quietly, she said, "This really will work?" Even what Cú Caster had done had _worked_, even if he'd admitted when pressed that he wouldn't have seduced a male Master the same way.

Karna put his hands on either side of her. "If it doesn't work, I'll be putting your war on hold until I hunt down whoever put this knowledge into our heads to cut them into pieces."

She ran the fingers not entangled in his hair over his face, her heart pounding and her stomach churning. She was being brave. Everything would hurt in the end, because that's what always happened. But she wanted to live; she wanted Mash to live, and she wanted a world for them to live in. The world after incineration was a world for killers, but even then, _living_ was better than dying.

He caught her fingers in his hot mouth for a moment and then surged forward to kiss her again, his mouth hard and precise against hers, his breath as hot as smoke but far less choking. He pushed her thighs apart so he knelt between them, pulling her once more against his overheated body. It felt good, but that very overheating stopped her from losing herself to the arousal he sent curling through her. The more he touched her, the hotter he got, and she couldn't help the fear that awakening his power would leave her nothing but ashes.

_But that wouldn't make sense, would it?_

It was not a thought to give her courage, but she couldn't think about why. Karna's hands on her thighs squeezed as his thumbs stroked her panty-covered core. His mouth burned her, but it was a terrifyingly addictive fire. He was going to push her down and take her, take everything he wanted from her, and she was going to let him.

Panic squeezed her heart briefly, mingling darkly with the flame of pleasure he'd kindled. She shook her head and pushed on his chest. He broke away, his eyes blazing with a feral hunger she recognized from other Servants, like he wanted to devour her down to her bones, like there would be nothing of her left when he'd taken what he wanted.

Panting more with fear than desire, Ritsuka shook her head again and then pulled her top off. Once again, he looked at her like he was evaluating her weaknesses _watching her breathe_ and her burst of courage fled. She went from reaching around her back to unfasten her bra to curling around herself again.

But what patience he'd had before had vanished like mist in the sun. He forcibly stopped her from bringing her legs to her chest, instead shifting so he could pin her lower body against the bed with his. Then he dragged her arms away from her chest, holding them to her sides. "I won't let you run away."

"Please," she whispered, both afraid and aching for him to do more. Her chest rose and fell with her gasping breaths, and his gaze lowered. Then, releasing her wrists, he reached behind her back to complete the unfastening she'd started. After he tugged her bra away, he caught her hands before she could cover herself again, leaving her breasts bare and exposed to his gaze.

He looked for so long that she started struggling against him, remembering how he watched her in Orleans, knowing he'd be looking at her again in the future and remembering what he saw now. It was intensely humiliating. She'd never be able to bear it.

He released her wrists again only to cup her breasts in both hands. Almost instantly, her sense of humiliation vanished as his thumbs stroked her nipples. Her back arched and her head tilted back as she gasped in pleasure.

"Ah," he said softly. "That's what you like." Then he put that kiln of a mouth against her breast, exactly as she'd wanted to ask him to do before she'd lost to the fear. As he suckled she felt like he was pouring heat into her, stoking an inferno. He pushed her back to the mattress and she put her hands in his hair again distractedly.

Then he was removing her panties, and his fingers, far hotter than her flesh, pressed against her core. It was a soft pleasure compared to his mouth on her breasts, and she moved her hips fitfully.

He pulled away from her entirely and for a moment she was _freezing_. Her eyes flickered open and she saw him kneeling down, naked, on the bed. His body was lean and wiry, with ropey muscle on a narrow frame, with skin almost as white as his hair. Only his teal eyes and the crimson gem in his chest had color, and the gem blazed so brightly that the whole room was tinted in its light.

Her eyes skidded over his full erection and then backtracked as she stared at the size. Its length was proportional to his height, but it was far thicker than she'd expected. She twisted her fingers in the sheets, remembering Fuyuki, and how Cú Caster had taken her from behind. She'd never seen—

Karna bent over her, kissing her again as his hands roved over her body. He allowed her no time for thinking_, _for fanning her fears, only for feeling. Once again, his heat poured into her via his mouth and hands, until she was flushed and squirming against the leg between her thighs.

At that point, he straightened, lifting her hips until only her shoulders remained on the bed while staring down into her eyes. "This is what I'd do to complete the rite," he said softly, and jammed his girth into her. She covered her mouth, her eyes widening at both the stinging and the hot fullness. But even before the stinging had faded, Karna had begun to move against her, grinding her core against his pelvis in a slow growing explosion of sweetness.

He watched her, too, his eyes on her body as she shivered and trembled under his control. Her breasts spilled sideways, bouncing with his thrusts. It felt so good, and yet the way he'd stared! He'd always be seeing her like this now, under her clothes. It was exciting and terrifying and she wanted to cover herself again.

Instead, stuttering a little, she said, "Karna… Karna, don't tell anyone? Don't tell them what I'm like?"

He adjusted her legs so he could support her weight with a single arm—that Servant strength at work— and reached down to caress her breast. "I won't."

She closed her eyes as his hips and fingers moved, finally letting what he wanted to do to her happen. The pleasure swept her away, crackling through her body like lightning and leaving her blind to the world. He moved harder against her, shoving himself deeper, faster, rougher. Sunlight surrounded her, and he groaned before slowly lowering her to the bed.

Ritsuka opened her eyes. Karna knelt between her legs, breathing hard, a wild expression on his face. His hair had turned completely crimson.

"Did it work? Your hair…" she asked, and she wasn't sure if she wanted the rite to be real or not.

The wild-eyed expression faded and he pulled a strand of his hair so he could see it, in a surprisingly adorable movement. As she watched, the red faded back to white again, and he smiled at her. "Yes, it did. All available quantum particles have been catalyzed into my main body."

"Oh," said Ritsuka. "That's… good." And she meant it. She really did.

But she couldn't help remembering what Merlin Alter had said, when she'd first met him before Orleans, about how she'd give her body to a thousand Servants. Dread tickled under the languor. Karna had said they'd learned of the rite then, too.

She sighed and rolled on her side.

"I won't betray your privacy, Master," said Karna, moving so he could gently stroke her back.

_Ka-chan. _Merlin Alter smiled in Ritsuka's head.

"Thank you, Karna." But she knew: he wouldn't have to.


	8. 7 A Sigh on Damp Skin pt 2

Sleep was no longer a comfort for Ritsuka, even though most nights the touch of Merlin Alter on her dreams was no more than a whisper. But she woke each morning wondering if she was the same person. Some mornings, after more intense dreams, she woke convinced of a painful light shining within her.

The feeling faded each day, and by lunch she could almost forget the fragments of dreams she'd recalled at dawn. But as the lights dimmed for the night cycle, strange feelings and shards of memory would resurface. She would remember once more that sleep was a curse that came with the burned world.

Maybe if she could save it—

They said she could undo the fire—

_(But that was nonsense. What was burned stayed burned. The god never gave back.)_

Though for her friends, she'd try.

But she worried that who she'd wake up as the next day wouldn't try at all. Wouldn't care about Mash and Marie. Wouldn't even remember the fire. That would be bad, especially for Ritsuka.

One night, as she stared at the clean pajamas folded on her bed and tried to think of any other chore she could do beside sleeping, she had an idea. Quickly, she pattered down the hall to the lounge near da Vinci's workshop, where da Vinci and Romani often shared a cup of coffee before the night shift.

"Ritsuka," said da Vinci, looking at her over a steaming mug. "Isn't it past your bedtime, young lady?"

Earnestly, Ritsuka said, "I always have trouble sleeping. So I was wondering… do we have any medicines that make it so I wouldn't dream?"

Romani and da Vinci exchanged a look. Then Romani lowered his eyes to his mug while da Vinci said brightly, "La, no no no, Ritsuka. Dreams are an important part of your mental health. Without dreams, people go crazy, and that would be very bad for the Grand Order."

Ritsuka's brow furrowed. In a little voice, she said, "But if I don't sleep, I don't dream, either. Isn't that also bad?"

Something glinted in da Vinci's eyes and she nudged Romani with her foot. The doctor glanced up and then quickly down again. "I can give you something to help you sleep. It won't do anything about the dreams, though."

Ritsuka stared at the two Chaldean administrators as an old, familiar feeling uncurled in her gut, twisting through her and making her shoulders hunch. But despite that slow-growing sense of betrayal, she tried again, for Mash and Marie. "Please? Please help me make the dreams go away?"

da Vinci put her mug on the low table and stood up. "It's all right, Ritsuka. Dreams can't hurt you. We—" and her poise cracked, just a little. "We _know_ that. Dr. Roman will give you—"

Romani's face darkened as he looked up at da Vinci and then cut her off. "Ritsuka. _Are_ your dreams hurting you?"

Ritsuka flushed, hugging herself. "N-no. Most of the time, no. But they scare me so much." She didn't know how to explain her fear that each dream changed a little bit of her and that one day she'd wake up a different person.

Both Romani and da Vinci visibly relaxed. Da Vinci said, "But you were afraid during Orleans and Fuyuki, too, and you still brought them to a conclusion. I'm sure you'll do the same on our next mission. You're such a good girl, Ritsuka."

Ritsuka lowered her eyes at that, remembering too much. "Okay," she mumbled. "Good night."

* * *

The first time Ritsuka woke in her tower bedroom in Merlin Alter's realm, she sat up, looking around, still in her Chaldean pajamas. The circular room was empty, bounded by the curving wall, the door, and its eight windows. Today the northern one was unshuttered and the light that poured in was white and chilly.

She rose to her feet and ran across the cold stone floor to the window, but it was no portal home now. _He_ controlled that, as he controlled everything here. The sky was the high thin blue of winter and the wind that lifted Ritsuka's hair carried the bite of snow. The land far below was verdant and lush and unreachable.

She turned away from the window. The door of the chamber was plain wood like the bed, with a simple handle and no lock. If she wished, she could walk through and down the tower stairs to Merlin Alter's throne room.

Instead, she went back to the bed, lay down, and pulled the covers up to her chin. Maybe there was another way to avoid an encounter that made her stomach churn and her thighs tighten. But although she closed her eyes, she couldn't sleep.

_After all, you're already asleep, Ka-chan._

She heard the door open and close, and felt Merlin Alter sit down on the bed beside her. "Here you are, Ka-chan," he said, his voice bright with laughter. "You're allowed to leave your room, you know."

"I… I didn't want to," said Ritsuka nervously, keeping her eyes tightly closed.

He put his hand on her abdomen, and even through the thick blanket his touch sent a spiral of warmth through her. She opened her eyes and met his dark violet ones, rich with amusement and tainted with sin. His sensuous mouth quirked and her fingers twitched at the urge to touch his lips.

"Sweet, delicate Ka-chan, tucked so adorably in this bed and unable to sleep. Don't you know what you do want?" His fingers traced an upward arc against her stomach. Under the blanket, her own hands slid over her pajama-covered hips as she imagined the feeling of her fingers between her legs. Her mouth parted in a silent whimper.

He leaned down and kissed her, his tongue slipping between her lips briefly before he raised his head and whispered, "I do."

At the touch of his tongue, _heat_ swept over Ritsuka as her sense of the temperature in the wintery room skyrocketed. She pushed her fingers against her core and then, moaning, she kicked the blanket off herself and sat up, rising to her knees.

Squeezing her thighs together at the insistent demand of her body, she stared at Merlin Alter. His moonglow hair curled around his face and tumbled down his back and he smiled still, as if he'd expected her flurry of movement and the way she'd knocked his hand off her.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, breathing hard. She wanted to press herself against him as she'd never pressed herself against any man. Liquid warmth filled her core and her nipples were hard and irritated by the touch of her pajamas. He'd fix that; instinctively she knew he would.

A frown shadowed his eyes. "My poor Ka-chan. You've known so much pain and so little pleasure in your life that you hardly understand what your own body wants. You _must_ come to me, but I've promised you every pleasure you crave while you visit, have I not?" He ran a knuckle along her jaw and then stroked the skin under her ear, leaving a trail of lightning behind.

Slowly, Ritsuka raised her hands and cupped her own breasts. They felt heavy against her palms and the pleasurable shock of her thumbs over her nipples forced her to suppress a groan. "You've made these ache," she whispered.

"You _want_," corrected Merlin Alter. "And you fear. Lie back again now."

And then she was stretched on the bed once more, as if she'd never risen. But the blanket was still crumpled around her feet and she was so hot that her pajamas stuck to her body.

Deftly, Merlin Alter unbuttoned her pajama top. She slid her hands under as he did, bringing her fingers up to the lower curve of her breasts. But when he exposed her breasts entirely, he put his own hand around a mound and his touch was _nothing like her own._ She felt every movement of his thumb and every imprint of his fingers through each nerve in her body. Her own hands fell limply to the sides of her head as she arched her back and panted desperately.

"Yes," Merlin crooned. "This is what you want, isn't it?" He palmed her other breast, caressing and massaging the soft flesh, sending sharp shards of pleasure through her body. She gasped and bucked against him, needing more, _more_.

In response, his hot, wet mouth closed over one of her nipples and she cried out, digging her fingers into his mane of hair.

_Ah, yes, Ka-chan. You've hidden so much of yourself away, but now you begin to _feel _again. I said that you'd enjoy every violation, did I not? _As his tongue flicked over her nipple and his teeth scraped delicate flesh that rose into his mouth, he whispered in her mind. _You spill your slick sweetness so easily. I've waited for you, wanted you _so long_. If I used you up too soon, I would regret it for an eternity._

He left her breast and, stretching beside her, began to kiss her mouth again as he toyed with one nipple. This time, as his tongue delved deeply, she felt the same soul-deep shock she'd felt the first time he kissed her: as if somehow he'd reached inside her and split her apart. It had been a brief sensation previously, a yawning canyon that had filled with desire and faded when he released her.

Merlin Alter didn't release her this time. Instead as he kissed her something poured into the hollow space he'd made, a thundering roar of something sheer and shining that whirled through her. The way it scraped against the edges of her soul was an exquisite pleasure.

He groaned against her mouth, nearly panting himself. _Yes, yes, so perfect, so delicate and gentle—and your fear, your desire, so _pure_. Oh, Ka-chan! _The whole time, he poured into her, filling her until she began to forget who she was, and all with only a kiss.

At last, he lifted his head, though something stretched between them a moment longer before _snapping_. She gasped for breath, blinking up at him. He looked down at her and kissed her brow, her cheek, the side of her mouth… and then pulled himself away with a visible effort.

Standing, he said softly, his voice husky, "When you are ready, you may return through the north window, my Ka-chan. Come again soon."

He was gone. The light had gone with him, but the room was freezing once more. Ritsuka lay sprawled on the bed, feeling the shining sheer thing inside her: how good it felt, and how her untouched core still ached. Then, dazed and desperate for her own bed, she walked across a floor like ice and looked at the northern sky.

* * *

Ritsuka woke up again in her tower bedroom in Merlin Alter's realm, and looked around. The northwest window was unshuttered, and the orange light of a hunter's moon spilled through. She rose to her feet and padded across cold stone to look out. Mists covered the land below, smelling of apples and woodsmoke, and a dark shape soared against the moon before diving into the night.

Leaning on the windowsill, Ritsuka looked up at the stars directly overhead, trying to convince herself that the woodsmoke and the fog weren't signs of an untamed fire. The stars were strange, she realized. One of them was big and red where she remembered no red star before, while a girdle of four blue ones curved around it.

"Hi!" called a friendly voice, and a creature hurled itself around the curve of the tower. No, not one creature but two: mount and rider. The mount was all feathers and wings, with beady eyes and a beak. The rider was an androgynous figure with pink hair in a braid, clinging to the mount with their knees while waving both arms.

As they came to perch on the wall beside the window, the mount's great talons biting into stone, Ritsuka pulled herself back in. The dream whispered to her and she furrowed her brow. "Your name is Astolfo?"

"That's me!" said Astolfo, his chest puffing out. "And this is Hippogriff. Pleased to meet you, beautiful princess!"

Her heart pounding, Ritsuka asked, "What are you doing here?"

With a sunny smile, Astolfo said, "Oh, I belong to Merlin. He likes it when I play in the skies, so that's my job! And _you're_ his favorite guest. Are you enjoying yourself, Princess?"

Ritsuka's shoulders tightened as an embryonic dream died, and she didn't say anything. The woodsmoke tickled her nose again and she looked down at the mist, half-expecting to see orange flames peeking through.

"Hey," said Astolfo, and delicately touched her chin with one finger. Startled, she looked up to see his face close to hers. "Don't be sad, Princess. When his pets are sad, Merlin gets sad, too. Then everybody else gets sad." A shudder rippled through his form, although his kind expression didn't change, and Ritsuka saw a flash of how Merlin Alter's moods could influence his realm: _fields left fallow while farmers wandered lost in thorny labyrinths of their own minds._

"I know!" said Astolfo, breaking into a smile again. "You should explore. He likes it when we explore. Even if you go to the wrong place, he'll like that too."

Ritsuka's eyes widened as she remembered the battlefield in the throne room, and how Merlin Alter had enjoyed comforting her after she'd been frightened by it. She pressed her hands against her face as her cheeks and her core both warmed as she remembered how his kind embrace had so naturally become his tongue stroking inside her mouth.

"Yes, yes," nodded Astolfo. "Explore! Have fun! He'd never take that away from _you_."

The hippogriff squawked at this and flapped its huge wings, propelling itself away from the tower. Astolfo, unprepared, half-tumbled off, catching himself by a saddle strap. He dangled, laughing, as the hippogriff flew back toward the orange hunter's moon.

Ritsuka hugged herself as she turned away and then walked slowly to the door. It opened easily at her touch, and she descended the cold stone staircase that circled the inner wall of the tower. It wasn't nearly as long as she thought it had been, and soon she came to the floor with the complicated wire cage.

The cage's inhabitant had appeared in Chaldea, and apparently remained there even in her dreams, because the cage was now empty. She stared at it, curling her fingers into the open wire mesh. Golden hair twined into nests in the eye sockets of skeletal animals cluttering the floor of the cage, while long paths of wood and intricately woven metal ran all over the cage. Little bits of mirror flashed here and there and a musk she now knew well lingered.

Merlin Alter stroked Ritsuka's hair before trailing his warm hand down her back to slide comfortably around her waist.

"I trust Cath Palug has been behaving in Chaldea?"

Ritsuka shivered. "Fou. Mash calls him Fou."

"Oh? What a charmingly straightforward girl she sounds to be," said Merlin Alter, and Ritsuka had the horrible feeling she'd made a bad mistake in mentioning her kohai to the mage-king.

Quickly, she said, "Did he escape?"

With a laugh, Merlin Alter said, "That's not how this works, and you know it."

Her fingers tightening on the mesh, she tried again. "We feed him what we eat and he seems to like it. What did you feed him?"

"Oh, the same," he said carelessly. "Although he's always been more fond of blood than I am. He can do more with it, too."

Ritsuka remembered the pain-turned-to-pleasure when Fou had bitten her. He'd never repeated the experience in Chaldea, and she'd been able to mostly forget the terrifying way that sharp teeth slicing into her skin had become a powerful aphrodisiac.

"That's how he came to Chaldea, isn't it?" she asked. "Through my blood?"

"Clever Ka-chan. And now he sleeps in your kohai's bed, is that it?"

_No, no, no!_ She didn't want to talk about Mash with him, _ever_. She pushed herself away from the cage and turned to him, curling her hands against his chest instead, hoping to distract him that way.

His arms closed loosely round her, but he did nothing more. She glanced shyly up at him and saw the gleam in his wicked, shadowed eyes. "He curls beside her even now, nestled in the curve here…." He moved one hand to the junction of her thigh and hip.

She pushed her hands up to his shoulders, scanning his face for any sign of interest, distraction, or any response at all to her. But his little smile never changed. "Sometimes, his tail slides against her naked thigh…" and his fingers traced the route, brushing lightly against her core as he slid his hand against her inner thigh.

Desperately, Ritsuka pushed herself on her toes and pressed her lips against his neck. He laughed, his hand at her waist tightening as his other hand pressed harder against her core, sending a jolt of pleasure through her locked knees.

Almost unconsciously, she licked his neck, inhaling his scent of lilac and lotus.

"Innocent Ka-chan. You're really not very good at this. But that's okay," he said reassuringly, once again sliding both arms around her waist. "I have other pets who are, if I want that game. And I'm not interested in your little friend, not when I have you. So be easy: each of our little friends can simply enjoy each other."

She licked him again and he inhaled. "But if you still wish to continue that, feel free." His hands came up, threading through her hair, and each tug and twist felt as good as his fingers against her core. "Shall I take you to your room?"

"No," Ritsuka whispered, not wanting the bed and what came with it. "Not yet." She licked a third time and realized it felt as magical as kissing his mouth. "This is good," she mumbled.

"Yes," he said. "It would be." He stroked her hair and her back with regular rhythmic strokes as she lapped at his skin. When she found herself using her teeth in tiny little nips, he laughed again. "Little mistress of calamity. You can't take Cath Palug's place, you know."

They were sitting, he with his back against the cage wall and she in his lap, her arms twined around his neck. She felt wonderful and sleepy, and as he continued stroking her, her pleasant languorousness increased.

"I _could_ sleep now," she told him with drowsy defiance.

"Go ahead," he told her. "I'll allow it. I've enjoyed your visit today very much, Ka-chan. Do come again soon."

She drifted off, through the northwest window, the sensation of his fingers through her hair following her all the way back to her own bed.

* * *

Ritsuka woke up again in her tower bedroom in Merlin Alter's realm, and looked around. The western window was unshuttered, and a dry yellow light tinted the room. She rose to her feet and walked from shadowed chill into a sun-warmed square of stone next to the window. Golden fields swayed far below, with thatched houses dotted between them. Even from high above, the scent of dried grass and unwatered earth tickled her nose.

She turned away and left the room. Once she'd descended the stairs, she went past the cage and to the throne room beyond. She paused at the empty throne, looking down at the quicksilver pool that puddled around her bare feet. It felt cool like glass, but her reflection rippled.

"Wake up, Mother," said a sardonic feminine voice. "We have a guest."

Raising her eyes, Ritsuka skimmed her gaze quickly over the stilled battle vista that occupied the far end of the throne room like a silenced screen to instead focus on the woman in red who'd spoken. She stood next to the golden birdcage containing an older version of herself, crowned and veiled. The woman in red wore a spiked collar, and manacles and chains at her ankles and wrists. Each chain had been broken at a different length.

The dream whispered their names to her. _Mordred. Morgan._

Morgan took hold of the bars of her cage, excitement burning in previously dead eyes. "You! Come here, quickly!"

Her daughter crossed her arms, leaning on one leg. "Yes, do."

Warily, because danger and malice radiated from Mordred, Ritsuka came down the throne's dais and stopped well out of reach of the longest of Mordred's chains.

"No, come closer!" insisted Morgan. "Come closer and I'll tell you how to free us all!"

Mordred rolled her eyes. Then, moving in a flash, she darted to Ritsuka, grabbed her arm, and hauled her all the way to the golden cage. As Ritsuka sprawled at her feet and she settled back into her cross-armed lean, she said, "You really are a frail thing, aren't you. Hmph. I bet he'll get bored with you soon enough."

Morgan hissed, "Closer. Mordred, bring her to me."

Mordred raised one eyebrow at Ritsuka. "If you indulge her, it'll be worth it."

Puzzled, Ritsuka stood up and moved as close to Morgan as she could.

Fingers like talon brushed her arm, the cage protecting Ritsuka from what she was sure would have been a death grip. Morgan whispered, "You must kill him, child. Kill him while he takes you, and free _everyone_."

A smile twitching at Mordred's mouth, she said, "Before you agree, know that Mother's tried that dozens of times, pretty girl."

Ritsuka tried to imagine having the strength to even try such a thing. As her head slowly shook, Morgan's eyes widened. "No? No?" Those eyes filled with tears and she began to sob, moaning and clutching herself as if she'd lost her dearest dream.

Mordred promptly started laughing, a raucous sound, as if this was a joke she loved. "See, Mother? I don't even have to hurt you myself!"

Ritsuka looked between the two of them, one weeping, one laughing at the other's tears. Slowly she backed away. "You're both…"

"Oh, she speaks!" Once again, Mordred grabbed her before she could react. "Don't run away so soon, pretty girl. I want to play too."

The woman in red pulled Ritsuka close, closer, and then her mouth was closing over Ritsuka's. She kissed more like Beowulf than Mash: demanding and ungentle, with a tongue as hard as her words. But unlike with Beowulf, Ritsuka had no reason to endure such contact, so she shoved at Mordred's chest.

"Mmm." Mordred pulled her head away, her eyes slitting closed as she leaned her breasts into Ritsuka's hands. "Rough little thing, aren't you." She moved her mouth to Ritsuka's neck as Ritsuka reflexively squeezed Mordred's breasts.

Then she lifted her hands away. "No!"

But Mordred held her close, her mouth moving along Ritsuka's collarbone. The other woman's hands slid around her hips to cup her behind. It felt strange, uncomfortable, unwanted, yet not _unpleasant._

_Oh, where was Mash, where was Olga Marie? _Then she remembered she didn't want them to be here; that she'd do anything to protect them from that dark violet gaze. "No," she said again, more loudly, her breath hitching in her anxiety.

Once again Mordred lifted her head, although she didn't release Ritsuka from the circle of her arms. "All right. Shall I kill you instead? That might finally get him to kill me for good, don't you think, Mother?"

Ritsuka realized Morgan's sobbing had stopped and now the caged queen watched them with eyes like a jade falcon. "Little Mordred. Have you finally accepted you'll never be his lion?"

Mordred flushed and she shoved Ritsuka away. "This kitten certainly won't, either."

Morgan's flat gaze followed Ritsuka's flail for balance. "No. There will never be any lions again." Then her gaze went to the throne behind Ritsuka and once more her flat gaze became fire.

"Dammit," muttered Mordred as she too glanced beyond before giving Ritsuka a look of pure dislike.

Ritsuka looked over her shoulder and then turned around as everything else in the room seemed to fade away. Merlin Alter sat on his throne, leaning his head casually on one arm and lightly spinning a wooden crown around one finger. He wore his usual slight indulgent smile.

"Enjoying playtime?" he asked.

Ritsuka instinctively shook her head, took two steps toward him, and then stopped as horror reshaped her desire to get away from the two women. Morgan was whispering, "Kill him, kill him, kill him…" while Mordred growled under her breath.

"Yes, come to me, sweetness," commanded Merlin Alter, and she went, despite her horror at the idea of running to him for safety. Once she'd mounted the dais, he tugged her into the throne beside him: a space she just barely fit into with his arm around her.

"She does have her hobby," he said, nodding toward Morgan. "Harmless, and it gives Mordred a chance to indulge her own interests. Hmm…" He tilted his head, studying the two. Mordred's eyes were fixed on the throne, and her growl was just audible from that distance.

Then Merlin Alter stood, drawing Ritsuka up after him. "My delicate Ka-chan. Let's return to your room and I'll open a window for you."

Ritsuka's eyes widened. "Already?"

Merlin Alter gave her a one-eyed humorous look. "If you want more, you don't _have_ to use it. But yes, it's upstairs time now."

And then she was on the stairs, her hand tucked in Merlin Alter's as they climbed. In the distance, from the direction of the throne room, there was a clang and a hoarse cry of pain. Ritsuka flinched, looking back as another agonized cry, higher and shriller, echoed up the tower.

"No, no, Ka-chan. Up we go. Their amusements aren't for you." He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, stroking his fingers along the shell of her ear as he did. She shivered at his touch and glanced up at his face. "Will you climb or shall I take away your pain here and now?"

Ritsuka swallowed. "I want to go home, please." She started climbing on her own, and pushed open the door into her room, lit with gold and smelling of drought and dried grass.

"There you go," said Merlin. "Run along. Next time we'll have to work a little harder, though."

She looked through the western window, and fell into her own bed.

* * *

Ritsuka woke up again in her tower bedroom in Merlin Alter's realm, and looked around. The southwest window was unshuttered, and a bright blue sky shimmered beyond. She rose to her feet and hurried across cool stone to the window, where she could see a white sand beach curving behind dozens of little houses right below her. The ocean was a line of deep blue that blended into the bowl of the sky. A fresh, friendly wind carried the chalky smell of the coast and just a hint of the kiss of the surf to dampen her cheek.

She spent a moment scanning the sky for Astolfo and his hippogriff and then, not finding them, pushed open her door and went down the stairs. She spent a moment lingering at the cage, looking for any other exit from the tower base except into the throne room.

But when neither her host nor another exit appeared, she crept through the throne room arch, hiding herself behind the throne at first. The chamber was dark and still, with covers over both the cage that had been empty and the cage that had contained Morgan.

Slowly Ritsuka went down the dais steps, and then looked over her shoulder once she'd moved a few steps away, and this failed to summon Merlin too.

The screen of the battle at the end of the throne room shifted, moving slowly. As she took a few horrified steps closer, the scene moved more and more quickly, as if her approach brought time itself to the endless slaughter.

Nothing stirred under the birdcage covers, and the throne behind her remained empty. Except for the flames on the battlefield, the room was barely lit. But although the battle moved, it was silent, scentless and unreal until she passed that invisible point where it sprang to shocking, visceral life.

She stood on a steep slope, looking down into a valley where kings died for love and soldiers reached for glory. Metal and men both screamed, horses and arrows whistled and women moaned as they held their loved ones in the mud made from earth and blood. Fires burned here and there, as if fueled by hatred and shattered dreams.

A dark figure moved through the battlefield towards Ritsuka. Though his hair glinted like the moon and he wore black, his eyes blazed like the incineration itself. Unlike everybody else on the battlefield, she knew he _saw_ her. The knowledge struck her like a bolt of fire: he was _looking_ for her, tracking her, and when he caught her, he would _kill her_.

Breathing hard, Ritsuka retreated two steps, and then turned back to the dim emptiness of the throne room with the sounds of battle still ringing in her ears. Without thinking, she ran through the throne room, convinced that if she looked back the dark hunter would still be coming toward her. Where was her host? Why was the room throne room so dead?

She couldn't stop seeing the fire-eyed hunter in her mind's eye, and the sobbing women he passed as he stalked her. They wailed and sobbed, and the forms in their arms weren't always the bodies of grown men. And she knew from her previous viewing that the women too would die, impaled on the lances of knights….

Her feet splashed through the quicksilver pool before she burst into the cage room. Merlin was leaning against the cage, looking inward as if missing his smallest companion. He looked up as she flung herself at him, catching her easily.

His mouth quirked in amusement as he wrapped his arms around her. "Did you look at the feast again, Ka-chan? I did warn you."

Even his arms didn't take the images in her mind away. She shook her head wildly and gasped, "Take me, take my pain away." Clinging to him, she pressed her lips against the bare skin of his shoulder, her tongue sliding over his flesh, seeking the pleasure she'd felt before.

His fingers tightened against her back. "Upstairs?" he whispered against her temple. His voice rippled through her and her nipples tightened, ached.

"I don't care, I don't care," she said frantically, almost clawing at him. She needed him inside her instead of the hunter with the eyes of fire, who kept getting closer and closer in her mind. She didn't want Merlin Alter's amusement or his words. She wanted him to take her mind away so the true nightmares didn't catch her.

His mouth moved down the side of her face as his hands slid under her pajama top and pulled it off her. Then his mouth was on her breast and she was on her back on the stone floor, her fingers hooked into the cage just beyond her head. She groaned at the scrape of his tongue over her sensitive skin, felt the same scrape at the same time on her other breast and didn't open her eyes to look. She didn't care. She needed this. It felt like salvation.

He straddled her, sliding down her pajama bottoms, his nails scratching lightly over her hips. Then his fingers slid against her wet core and she shook her head. "More. Please, more, I want you in me." In her mind, the rasp of Merlin's tongue warred with the burning hands of the hunter pulling her close. "More, now, now!"

_Ah, Ka-chan, little phoenix of desire._ He moved his mouth to hers, his hands tangling in her hair. _You saw far, far too much, but you instinctively knew the cure. My good girl. _

As his mouth filled hers, she felt a hard heat sliding against her core and a trickle of foreign moisture mixing with her own. Then, slowly he began to penetrate her and she realized with a jolt of excitement that for all her visits to his realm, this was the first time he'd taken her this way. She wanted to lift her hips, hasten his maddeningly slow progress, but her body didn't respond to her will.

Instead his mouth moved over hers, pleasurably consuming her, until finally he was fully sheathed within her. Then, only then, did that canyon split across her soul. As he began to move within her, comets of pleasure filled the void, streaking across her mind as his tongue twined with hers and he steadily thrust. More and more shooting stars fell through her until it seemed like the entire sky would collapse within her.

But before that could happen, a new sun rose within the void, burning away the cracked sky so that there was nothing but the sheer, shining light of Merlin Alter. It filled the hollow space he'd opened within her, wracking her body with pleasure as fine and sharp as shattered glass. She screamed using his breath and still he filled her more and more. Her consciousness flickered and when she came to again, still, still, _still_ he poured himself into her.

_Ka-chan, Ka-chan… _He whispered her name in her mind. She knew only that if he stopped, she'd forget who she was, and never find her way back again.

Then Merlin Alter's weight shifted on her, within her, and he broke their kiss, pulling away, leaving that shining connection between them to once again _snap_. She stared blankly as he pulled himself from her, still keenly aware of the power whirling within her. The way it wore at the edges of her soul felt so amazing.

He held her in his arms, cradled against his chest, as he stood at the southwest window. "Time to go back to Chaldea, adorable Ka-chan," he said. "When you let yourself take your pleasure, you quite sweep me away. But come back again soon anyhow."

She turned her head and looked out the window, and a wave from the beach rolled across her mind, carrying her back to her own bed.

* * *

Ka-chan woke up again in her tower bedroom in Merlin Alter's realm, and looked around. The southern window was unshuttered, and a deep blue sky barely lit the room. After a long moment of simply looking at the window, she rose to her feet and drifted over to look out. From the tower to the horizon, she saw only the ocean, wine-dark under a pre-dawn sky.

She stayed there for a long time, just gazing at the emptiness. Once the ocean had been a peaceful sight for her, but now she stared at the sea and understood that even water could burn. It fascinated her, reminding her of the canyon Merlin Alter opened within her sometimes, and how it could be filled.

The door opened and closed behind her and Merlin Alter's arms slid around her waist. He rested his chin on her head for a moment in silence, before nibbling on her ear and murmuring, "I find you here today, sweetness."

His hands at her waist slid upwards and she leaned back a little against his strength, her eyes still fixed on the burnable ocean. "Can you do anything?"

Delicately he stroked her breasts and browsed her hair for a moment before saying, "Not anything, no."

Her nipples became hard little pebbles under his gentle fingers, but she kept her gaze out the window, watching as little whitecaps developed on the water. "What can't you do?"

He bent lower, bringing his head beside hers to give her a friendly side eye. "So shy and quiet, yet when you do talk you pick such grim topics." He was amused rather than irritated. "I couldn't help humanity save itself. I really did try, too."

She glanced at him, her brow furrowed as she remembered an earlier dream. "The Battle of Camlann."

He kissed her neck absently, one hand sliding down her abdomen again. "Yes. That was when I stopped trying to let humans sort out their own affairs." Two of his fingers slid under her pajama bottoms and stroked across her core. "Any more questions, my inquisitive one?"

She bit her lip against the silken sensation, trying to concentrate on the seascape beyond the window even though she wanted to move against his hand. A speck moved through the sky. "What are you doing to me?"

He drew his tongue along her ear and traced his fingers along her slit before whispering, "I'm an incubus, Ka-chan."

Ka-chan frowned as the dream whispered to her again. "Half-incubus?"

She felt him shake his head even as his fingers dipped inside her and a shudder of pleasure rippled through her. "Not any more. As I said, at Camlann… I stopped trying. Nothing made sense and everything I'd been pushing away came home."

He pulled his fingers out of her and turned her to face him, boosting her to sit on the window ledge. His face was grave as he looked at her. Tenderly he pushed a strand of hair away from her face. "Are you fond of the ocean?"

Ka-chan shook her head. "It burns, too."

In a flash, Merlin Alter's somberness transformed into delight. "With a great deal of effort, yes, it does. Do you wonder if I can do _that_?"

Shrugging, Ka-chan looked over her shoulder at the sea again. He wrapped his arms around her as if he thought she might fall.

"I can," he whispered. "Would you like that?"

"I don't know," she said. "I don't think so. Fire scares me."

He moved against her, pressing against her core, and she wrapped her legs around him: instinct when she had nothing against her back but the palm of his hand.

"Like I scare you?"

She looked back at him and he kissed her, more roughly than he'd ever done before. But it was still Merlin Alter's kiss and it felt good enough that the spasm in her thighs pulled her tight against him. She was naked now, she realized. She was naked and he was unbound and hard against her core.

Her mouth parted against his and she moaned against him helplessly as he stroked his tongue against hers. She truly was so very scared of him, scared of his power, his control, his hungers. But she needed this. Every time he touched her, he made her need him.

Still kissing her, Merlin Alter pushed himself within her. For a long moment he held himself there as if they'd been fused together. Then he finally began to move, slowly sliding in and out, each motion slick and wet. And although he kissed her, and he fucked her, this time no canyons opened within her soul. The falling stars came one at a time, each one with a long and beautiful tail. She gasped and whined and twitched against him and when he released her mouth to move down to her breasts, still moving between her legs, she arched her back over the sea and looked up at the sky as the first flood of her orgasm swept over her.

The tower terminated above her room, coming to a concave point. Two heads peeked over the edge: one beaked, one with a dangling pink braid. As she blinked in dazed puzzlement, as Merlin used her body and pleasured her body, Astolfo grinned and waved. Then he and the hippogriff vanished beyond the tower's edge.

Merlin Alter pulled her back to him for another kiss, gentle again. Then, still buried deep within her, he said, "One thing I _can_ do, most fortunately for us both, my Ka-chan, is _control myself_ even in the face the sweetest temptation. I would be _so_ sad if I used you up too soon…"

He kissed her again and withdrew. And then once again she was in her pajamas, looking out the southern window. "You're in a contemplative mood, sweetness, so I'll leave you to your sea viewing. When you're ready to go home, the window will know."

And so the window did. When the sun was high above the swelling waves, it collapsed beneath her weight, dumping her back into her own bed.

* * *

Ka-chan woke up again in her tower bedroom in Merlin Alter's realm. The southeast window was unshuttered, and puffy clouds sped across a gray-blue sky. She could smell lush vegetation and hear the distant cry of jungle birds. Instead of rising, she curled up.

He would come to her no matter what she did, and do whatever he wanted. Even if she enjoyed it, even if she _wanted_ it too, it didn't matter. She could choose where he found her, but she couldn't hide. She couldn't escape. He wasn't fire, but she wondered if he might not be something just as bad. The shadows in his eyes promised her he was.

The door opened and closed, and she felt the weight of Merlin Alter as he sat on the bed beside her. Then he stroked her hair gently. "Ah, Ka-chan. You're not feeling like yourself today." He kissed her temple, but that was all, returning to running his fingers through her hair. "That's fine, sweetness. I'll take good care of you."

His weight shifted and he laid on the bed behind her, cuddling around her, holding her comfortably. His breath stirred her hair and his arm draped over her waist to rest on her other side. Except for some shifts of breath and moments where she thought he was about to speak, he stayed like that, even when the sky beyond the southeast window filled with gray and rain blew in with the breeze.

At last, driven by something within herself she didn't understand but accepted as part of her, she twisted toward him, remaining under the shelter of his arm. In the rainshadow twilight, they looked at each other. His dark eyes had a luminous gleam of lilac, and his well-defined lips had just a hint of his usual smile.

She gave into a long-standing urge and brushed her fingers over them. He didn't respond with twitch or word, but his eyes half-closed.

Then she was kissing him, and she didn't know if he'd started it or she had. It was a delicate, gentle kiss, with his fingers on the side of her head and her hands curled against his chest. His hands didn't rove, nor his mouth, and no hollow canyons opened in her soul. It was only a kiss, sweet and tender.

It thundered outside, and she kissed him, though her hands tightened against his chest. Lightning lit up the room, and she kissed him, watching how his eyes swallowed the light. Trees shook in the wind and a flock of parrots complained, and she kissed him, until at last she pulled away and pressed her head where she'd had her hands.

"Sleep now, Ka-chan," he said softly, stroking her hair again. "Feel better when you return."

Obediently, her eyes drifted closed, and she slept against his chest, waking in her own bed.

* * *

Ka-chan woke up again in her tower bedroom in Merlin Alter's realm. The eastern window was unshuttered and long, feathery clouds ghosted across a midmorning sky. She sat up, looking toward the window, and hesitated before slipping out of bed to pad across a warm stone floor.

Beyond the window a river wound lazily through a plain rich with swaying green. Long-legged birds moved along the river's edge, and around the tower itself grew a grove of aromatic cedar trees.

The door opened behind her and she turned, skittering back to jump into the bed again. As the door closed, Merlin Alter smiled at her. "No playing sick today, my Ka-chan. I have something far more interesting planned."

She peered at him suspiciously, hugging a pillow.

Then she was standing in the middle of the open floor and Merlin was smoothing his fingers along the straps of the silken burnt orange gown she wore. She held her arms out at his touch and he ran his fingers down her side, stroking the exposed curve of her breasts. When she shivered and warmed, he laughed at her. "Not right now, little phoenix. My other guests are waiting."

He took her elegantly by the hand and drew her along with him.

"But what are we doing?" asked Ka-chan, because sometimes he answered questions.

"I'm sure you can guess, you clever girl." He paused and swept her hair up from her neck, letting it twist itself into a knot. "Or you can let yourself be surprised."

And sometimes he didn't.

Ka-chan sighed, her lower lip pushing out in just a hint of a pout. He noticed and stopped, bending to kiss her deeply.

Then her back was against the stairwell wall and his fingers had found her breasts under her dress. Her arms twined around his neck and she bit his lip before he finally pulled away, whispering, _Not yet…_

Smoothing her dress again, he added wryly, "At least you're in a good state of mind for your ball."

He was guiding her down the stairs again and she was too distracted by the aching she'd awoken in her core to ask more questions that would only slow their progress.

The so-called ball was in the throne room, where the golden cages were empty and dozens of figures in armors and silks swirled between Ka-chan and the battle vista. Music came from nowhere particular, pretty and empty, but instead of dancing, the guests only whispered as they moved in vague patterns. When Merlin Alter appeared, they all turned toward him, most of them bowing or curtseying to varying degrees. The signs of respect didn't seem to interest him at all, his gaze remaining focused on herself.

Through the ripple of obeisances, she saw two figures that remained above the others, and recognized them as Mordred and Morgan. As the crowd moved again, she realized that they lounged on tables; no, were _chained_ to the tables.

Then a line of hollow-eyed men blocked her view of the tables, and Merlin was settling something round and light on her head. She touched it before he'd finished and felt the smooth wooden finish of his crown.

Panic surged through her and she tried to duck away. She was already bound here; wearing his crown would be far too much, and far too confusing.

He caught her and pulled her upright with a gentle tsk. "Frightened of this, too? It's a useless symbol most of the time, Ka-chan, but today it serves a purpose." He showed it to her and she realized some of the gems were missing before he once again placed it on her head.

After that, he waved at the line of hollow-eyed knights. They wore only bits of flashing metal instead of full armor, but still she could see from their build and their bearing that if any would be called knights, they would.

"I thought you might pick one of them as your champion," said Merlin cheerfully.

"One of them?" Ka-chan was bewildered. One had red hair, and several had golden hair. One of them had hair of pitch. All of them had empty, dead eyes that she recoiled from. Instead, she looked around, wondering if there was anybody else she knew at the little ball.

Dryly, Merlin Alter said, "I'm unconvinced you could handle two yet, sweetness." His hand settled encouragingly on her back. "Looking for somebody?"

"Is Astolfo here?" she asked without thinking.

Merlin Alter tilted his head. "He doesn't enjoy these little affairs as much as he used to. But if you'd like him—?"

"Oh no!" said Ka-chan quickly and turned her attention to the knights standing for her inspection. She couldn't stand that thought of the hippogriff rider with eyes like them. "But what would I do with one of them?"

"Oh, anything you please. I thought you might appreciate some diversity in your playmates." He waved a hand and the other guests parted as naturally as breathing, so that she could once again see Morgan.

The chained queen had stretched herself on the table, and was languidly attending to the needs of one of the male guests with her hands and mouth. When she realized Merlin was watching her, she paused, turning toward him and stroking one hand down her lush body, although her eyes remained flat and cold.

Ka-chan shuddered, lowering her gaze, but Merlin Alter only chuckled. "You see, even Morgan benefits from a change in scenery now and again. Come, why don't you try dancing with one?"

Shaking her head, Ka-chan pulled away from Merlin Alter's hand, afraid of what he wanted from her. "No. No, I don't want anyone."

An odd smile played over Merlin Alter's face. "No? What do you want, then? Do you know yet?"

The smile frightened her. She stumbled away from him, deeper into the ball, toward the dessert tables and past them without looking too closely at what Mordred was doing with a tall lady with raven hair. Beyond lay the battle vista. Although it horrified her, at that moment the boundless horizon on solid ground suddenly seemed like nothing so much as _escape_ from intentions she could barely comprehend.

Before she could think too hard, she dashed forward, into the roar and stench and further on, sliding down the steep slope in her bare feet and ballgown. As she windmilled her arms for balance, the sound faded around her—not the complete absence of noise from the throne room, but what happened when the battle _stopped_, completely. Even the screams of pain died away.

Cautiously, she looked around. Hundreds of eyes stared at her, from bodies frozen in place. Then, one by one, those still on their feet kneeled as the weapons fell from their hands.

Ka-chan shook her head, backed a step and surged forward through the kneeling combatants, straining her eyes to see an end to the field of war. She failed. Instead she saw a single figure in motion: a man in black, with pale hair and eyes of fire, stalking out of the bloody sun.

Ka-chan's every priority instantly inverted. She _knew_ Merlin Alter and his evil would preserve her from the death that prowled toward her. She backed up and then turned to run the way she'd came. The throne room had disappeared, but she didn't care, as long as she was putting any kind of distance between herself and her hunter.

Only a moment later, she crested a small hill and found Merlin strolling toward her. She ran straight to him and once again, he caught her easily. "Really, sweetness, must I take this choice away from you? Although I can't say I don't enjoy the consequences…"

"He's coming…" she gasped, and Merlin Alter looked beyond her at the dark hunter, his gaze cooling.

He watched in silence as the flame-eyed figure approached, until the other man was only a few yards away, when he finally flicked his fingers and the figure frozen. "So that's what scares you the most, Ka-chan?"

It wasn't like the frozen soldiers, though, who had knelt under their own power and by something resembling their own choice. The man with the burning eyes was frozen like a fly in amber, and judging from his expression it _infuriated_ him.

But Merlin Alter clearly didn't care. Instead he gave Ka-chan a look tinged with the first sign of impatience she'd ever seen from him. "Well? Is that who you'd like as your playmate?"

Ka-chan gaped at him. Then, her voice shrill, she said, "I'm _scared_ of him. He wants to kill me."

Merlin Alter gave the other man a quick, flickering gaze. "The real thing, yes. But this one is just a dream. You can have him here if you wish."

Something prickled against Ka-chan's skin and she pulled away from Merlin Alter. "I'm scared of him," she repeated.

Merlin Alter stroked her jaw with his knuckle. "You're scared of everything you want, sweetness."

She shook her head and stepped further away. "Don't touch me. I can't think when you touch me."

"All right," he said indulgently, watching her.

Ka-chan hugged herself, her fingers brushing against her skin through the open sides of her gown. More than anything, she was afraid that Merlin Alter would force this killer… this _dream_ of a killer upon her. She could imagine blinking and finding herself in his rough and angry embrace.

She could imagine liking it.

As liquid warmth coiled through her, she gave Merlin Alter a panicked look. "Nonono, I don't want to be hurt. I don't, I don't!" she begged. "Please!" She backed away, and tripped over a kneeling soldier.

Then she was falling against Merlin instead of in the crimson mud. He caught her lightly, set her on her feet again, and kept one hand on her waist this time. "You're getting overwrought, Ka-chan," he murmured. "Pain is not part of my plan for you at this point."

He plucked the wooden crown from her head and made it vanish. "But I rushed you." Then he pressed his forehead against hers, and murmured, "You see? There are so many things I can't do. Not the way I'd like to do them, anyhow."

He lifted his head and they stood in the throne room. The ball had vanished , the battle vista was silent, and once again both cages were covered. Pleasantly, he said, "And here we are again. Forget, if you wish."

Ka-chan recoiled in his embrace, bringing her hands up. "No!"

Raising an eyebrow, continuing to hold her, he said, "No? I don't like to send you back to Chaldea with nightmares, you know. The real version of your hunter won't be a problem for a long time yet."

Fiercely Ka-chan shook her head. "I want to remember, even if it scares me.."

"Ah," he said, and brushed his lips over hers. "You see? Your desire and your fear: two sides of the same coin. How can I refuse such honesty, though?"

She opened her mouth to argue, and he kissed her again instead, this time with an urgency she'd never witnessed before. His hands ran over her body in the clinging silken ballgown, touching her as he'd touched her on the steps, and she thought that he'd been holding himself back all that time.

_If only he hadn't, they'd done this instead. _

She wrapped her arms around his neck, letting him take her tongue and touch her as he pleased. She didn't want to forget, but she didn't want to remember, either; didn't want the man with eyes of fire to touch her later in her other dreams, less magical dreams.

Merlin Alter's mouth moved to her neck and then her shoulder. The strap holding up her gown fell away and the entire thing shimmied down to pool at her feet. He closed his teeth over her shoulder as he pulled her naked body against him, and she dug her nails into his shoulders.

_Oh, my Ka-chan, if I filled you every time I wished to, you would be a husk far too soon. You see how weak, how powerless I am?_ He kissed her again roughly, his teeth leaving stinging little nips on her lips before his tongue filed her mouth. _You would enjoy another, I promise. I'd make sure of it, and keep you safe, too._

"Please," she breathed. "Please, I don't want anybody else."

He groaned against her, and a canyon opened in her soul.

She was on her back on the stone floor of the throne room and he was thrusting into her, filling her with his mouth and his cock. Her pleasure was an incandescent arc as she writhed against him, trying to fill the crack in her soul that he left empty. She gasped, pushing herself harder and harder against him, trying to pull him deeper within her. The light of her orgasm swallowed her mind.

When she was conscious again, they were on the stairs and he was thrusting into her from behind, leaving marks on her shoulders as his thumbs circled her breasts. The pleasure that filled her was a lightning bolt from her core to her brain, but the crack within her soul seemed to glow with all her unfulfilled desire.

In her tower bedroom, the chasm in her soul still aching, she knelt on the warm floor and took his erection in her mouth, sucking as he slowly moved against her mouth. The same odd pleasure she felt kissing his skin elsewhere reverberated through her frame, and she looked up at him to see his indulgent expression as he stroked her hair.

"You're enjoying yourself, Ka-chan, and I like that very much. But I'm an incubus, you know? This isn't the same for me as it would be for another playmate. Are you sure—?"

She released him, panting, her jaw aching, and fell back against the bed. He sat behind her and pulled her into the circle of his arms. "You opened me," she whispered. "How do I feel better unless I please you?"

"All you can do is go home," he said. "Later, on another visit, I'll give you what you need." He rose, lifting her in his arms, and carried her to the eastern window. Tiredly, she turned and looked out, and let the river carry her back to her own bed.

* * *

Ka-chan woke up again in her tower bedroom in Merlin Alter's realm. The northeast window was unshuttered, revealing a sky like diamonds against velvet. She looked at the sky, so richly black that it seemed to contain rainbows, and remembered her last visit.

_In control_ was a phrase Ritsuka Fujimaru had rarely applied to her own life, but her previous visit had been nightmarish in how disjointed events had ended up. The idea that she could control anything here was clearly ludicrous, but she had to try, anyhow.

She rose from the bed, because that was making a choice, and walked downstairs. The cage room was empty, and the throne room had the cages covered. From the safety of the dais, she looked at the battle vista, straining her eyes to see the hunter with eyes of flame in the distance. At last, she sighed and returned to her tower bedroom.

Once again she pulled her covers up to her chin in the bed and closed her eyes to wait. This time, she was permitted to doze lightly, until she woke at the pressure of a body sitting down on the bed beside her. It wasn't Merlin Alter.

"Hello, Princess," said a friendly, familiar voice, and she opened her eyes to see Astolfo sitting on the bed beside her.

He smiled, his gaze vivid and alive, and touched her nose with one finger. "I could feel your sadness. Want to talk about it?"

Tears filled Ka-chan's eyes and she caught his hand, pressing it against her cheek. His smile changed, touching his eyes more and his mouth less.

"I don't want to be here," she whispered.

Astolfo's head tilted. "No? Even though you're doing so much for your people?"

"What?" She stared at him, her brow furrowed. "Here?"

"Ehehe," laughed Astolfo, putting his free hand behind his head. "I think so, yeah? I thought Merlin was using you as a vessel to transfer power to Chaldea, so the mage-king in your world couldn't win?"

Ka-chan thought about that, still holding Astolfo's hand against her cheek. She remembered the canyon in her soul filling with that sheer shining energy, and the looks da Vinci and Romani had exchanged when she asked them for dreamless sleep. Then, slowly, she said, "Not always. I'm sure not every time.."

Astolfo shrugged. "So your other visits are just for fun." His grin became crooked. "I know you do have fun. I've seen you. I've _heard_ you. But tell me what you like least? Maybe I can help."

She worried her lip with her teeth before saying, "The cages. All of them. This whole tower is a cage. And the battle." She hesitated and added in a small voice, "But most of all, the… the jolts."

"Jolts?" He gave her a puzzled look.

Helplessly, she said, "When I'm doing something and then suddenly I'm doing something else."

Astolfo's face cleared and his mouth twisted wryly. "The rewrites. You know, I warned Merlin about doing that too much." His hand turned against Ka-chan's and his thumb stroked her cheek. "He's too worried about ruining you for his own good. You should talk to him, Princess. Tell him how you feel." His grin broadened. "He can be very kind to those he likes, you know!"

Ka-chan stared up into Astolfo's cheerful face. The way he described Merlin Alter seemed nothing like the entity she'd come to know. "I think he's… bad," she said softly.

Astolfo laughed again. "Oh, well… I'm not an expert on that sort of thing. I mean, who am I to judge? But I know he's kind to those he likes, and I know he likes you!" His eyes softened as he gazed down at her, and his thumb brushed her lower lip. "I like you too."

Ka-chan's heart hammered in her chest, but not in an unpleasant way. She'd never met any man so cheerfully reassuring, so bright and encouraging. Looking into his eyes, she started to feel the flame of hope once more.

"And what are you up to, you rascal?" came an amused voice.

Astolfo soared to his feet, turning to face Merlin Alter where he leaned on the frame of the open door. "Boss! Hi, boss! I'm just trying to help out!" He took two steps away, removing himself from the line of sight between Ka-chan and Merlin Alter. Then he gave Ka-chan a double thumbs up encouragingly before turning and diving bodily out the northeastern window. There was a squawk from somewhere outside, and then a winged silhouette briefly blotted out some stars.

Merlin Alter watched Astolfo's departure, smiling, before moving to Ka-chan's bed. She sat up quickly. Her heart was still pounding, but for a very different reason than it had with her first visitor.

"You left this room and then came back," observed Merlin Alter, his eyebrows raising in curiosity. "What is it you want today, Ka-chan?"

Hurtling ahead before she could think, she said, "To talk. Just… to talk."

"Hmm," he said, and sat at the foot of the bed. "We'll need to take care of some business before you go home today, but we can start with talking."

Her core warmed at the thought of _business _as she remembered the _pleasure_ of the chaos in her last dream, and how he'd filled her core and her mouth while leaving her soul aching. But—

But not right now.

She stared into his dark and wicked eyes, trying to find the words to explain like Astolfo had advised her to do. They twisted in her mind, tripping over each other before making it to her tongue.

Then Merlin Alter said, "I see," and she flinched as once again she noticed the jolt of a disconnect. The _rewrite_, Astolfo had called it.

He gestured, spreading his fingers and added agreeably, "It's a bad habit. But I'm sure we can find a way around it. I don't want my Ka-chan unhappy." He paused. "Although you seemed to truly enjoy Astolfo's visit. I could—"

"No!" burst out Ka-chan. "I don't want anything from him!"

"He'd enjoy it, you know," pointed out Merlin Alter. "It would be easy." But as she shook her head, he sighed. "Very well. Let me think."

He contemplated her for so long that she began to twist her hands together nervously. His head canted to one side and his mouth twisted. Finally he offered, "I'll be more careful about what might upset you."

A lump of lead settled in Ka-chan's stomach. But it was the same lump of lead that had been coming and going since the world burned, so she tried again. "Lots of things upset me. Cages and rewrites and this cold bed…"

She trailed off as she realized he once again watched her with an indulgent smile.

"Of course," he said. "Although Morgan quite likes her cage. I think it would be cruel to take it from her, don't you? And the rewrites… well, they're a bad habit. There's no reason your bed ever has to be cold, though," and he gave her a rueful smile, "even if you keep refusing my offers of bedmates."

Her shoulders slumped. Then he was closer to her, lifting her chin with his knuckle and kissing her—but only briefly. His eyes, which always struck her as curtained windows to a world of atrocity, flickered with rainbows. "And today," he whispered, "I'll let you choose: shall I attend to our business on this visit, or your next?"

Hope sprang to life once more. She gazed at him in wide-eyed wonder. She'd resigned herself to the cracking of her soul, and anticipated the pleasure that came with it as her only recompense. But this, the pleasure of _choice_, swept all that away. Eagerly, she said, "The next visit, please."

He inclined his head. "Very well. Go and look out the window, then." She scrambled out of bed and looked out at the starry night, falling into it until it took her home.

* * *

Ka-chan woke up again in her tower bedroom in Merlin Alter's realm. The northern window was unshuttered and the light that poured in was white and chilly. The sky was the high thin blue of winter and the wind that blew in carried the bite of snow.

Merlin Alter awaited her, standing just inside the door. Her bed was piled high with furs, but she felt cold as she looked into his eyes. He smiled indulgently: the same expression on the same face, with the same eyes. She had furs now, but what had really changed?

"Come downstairs today," he said, and left her in the room. Slowly, she rose and wrapped one of the blankets around herself like a mantle. Then she walked across the icy floor and down the stairs. Cath Palug's cage remained exactly as it had been, and in the throne room, Morgan sat in her birdcage while Mordred lounged beside it.

But Merlin Alter awaited her beside the throne. "Come," he said. "Sit."

She sat in the throne, the fur blanket falling around her shoulders. For a moment, surveying the throne room with its cages and its battle vista, she felt powerful. He knelt before her and for one dizzy moment that she was the queen now, or at least that this was his form of respect.

He parted her knees and kissed the inside of one and she stared down at him as he traced his fingers up the inside of her thighs. Her breasts felt heavy and sensitive, and she instinctively scooted a little closer to the edge of the throne. But she couldn't stop staring at his smile: the same expression on the same face, and worst of all, the same eyes. They were the eyes of a man so far beyond what she understood as right or wrong that he _could_ be kind, carelessly and casually, without at all changing his fundamental nature.

He'd said the crown was only a symbol. She realized that was true of the throne. They meant nothing to him; they added nothing to his power; they were simply objects.

Ka-chan shivered as he traced his tongue up her thigh. She had a fur at her back, she sat naked in a throne, and nothing had changed. He licked at the folds of her core and she gasped as he slipped within to trace the interior.

She remembered Astolfo's bright and shining face, his faith that talking to Merlin would change everything. What had she done wrong? Why had he believed so much?

"Astolfo…" she murmured.

Merlin Alter lifted his head to smile at her. "Ah, Ka-chan. Have you finally decided what you want?"


	9. 8 Dragons and Saints pt 1

i.

They burned Jeanne d'Arc three times, until nothing was left but ashes, and it was from ashes that _he_ was born. He descended from the sky like an angel, but when he walked into the nearest inn, he engaged in every sin they could offer him. When he was done, he left the inn at dawn. It burst into flames as he walked away.

He said he was Jean d'Arc, and for a short while, people wondered what that meant. Though some had once speculated that Jeanne had been a man, that she was in truth the Maid of Orleans was widely known by the time of her death. Perhaps this Jean was her vengeful brother? But his supernatural powers suggested he was something far, far worse.

They only wondered for a short while, though. After that, everybody was far too busy running away or dying. France had betrayed Jeanne d'Arc, and France would suffer.

He became the Dragon Prince and called to him the legions of the damned. The dead walked and wyverns soared above the burning landscape. The gates of the Orleans castle he claimed as his own were guarded by a true dragon, but the prince was rarely there. He roamed the land, intent on tearing France to pieces, and who could stop him? He killed every priest he found, and he laughed as Charles VII died.

Then a new rumor came to the cursed country: that the true Maid of Orleans walked among them once more. Hope believed extinguished flared to life once more, although the madmen and prostitutes that flocked to the Dragon Prince swore up and down she was a fake. They declared that the Dragon Prince born of her ashes was all that was remained of France's savior.

But another rumor spread as well. It claimed that the Dragon Prince had come to burn yet another village—but he offered them reprieve if they would but swear that Jeanne d'Arc had been no true saint but the witch she'd been accused of being. It was such a simple way to save themselves, their land, their future.

They refused.

It was said that the Dragon Prince hesitated and then turned his army aside. As he did, he said, "Hah! It's good that at least one village in France won't betray her. Oh, but the one walking the land now is a fake. Don't give her shelter, or I'll definitely change my mind."

True or not, he offered no other village the same chance.

The Maid of Orleans and her ragtag band of companions made their way through France toward the headquarters of the remainder of the French army. When they met up, the Dragon Prince decided that was an excellent time to deal with multiple reoccurring annoyances.

He attacked in force. Acting on the guidance of his advisor, Gilles de Rais, he feinted at destroying the fake Maid of Orleans and instead captured a different prize: a young woman from a faraway land with hair like fire and eyes like a frightened bird. He bound her in cursed shackles, so that her supernatural guardians couldn't come to her, and carried her to his throne room, where he settled in to wait.

ii.

Jeanne d'Arc looked at the fortress of the evil Dragon Prince, where the massive dragon that willingly bent his scaly head to her counterpart lay coiled in front of the entrance. They'd had plans to deal with that dragon—but God had placed a different path before her now. Carefully, she picked her way down the hillside, keeping her banner held high even when she stumbled. Although human servants and wyvern minions of the Dragon Prince watched her as she walked across the field in front of the castle, not one tried to stop her.

When she came to the castle gate, she saw it was already open. Only the creature's monstrous talons placed in front of the entrance stopped her from walking in.

"And who are you?" rumbled the dragon.

"I am Jeanne d'Arc," she said clearly. "I have come to ransom the lady Ritsuka."

"Hah." The dragon's laugh was the rattle of a hundred swords. "So you have. He'll be delighted." It lifted its foot. "You may pass."

She walked down a familiar corridor and thought about how she remembered it as brighter. One it had been full of hope, back when the bells of God had echoed constantly in her mind and she'd never been lonely. Now, in this dark shadow of her beloved France, the bells were silent and she walked alone.

The great double doors of the throne room had been flung wide and the murmur of many voices emerged. She stopped at the entrance, holding tight to her banner. Within she could see the rabble of soldiers and camp followers that had flocked to the Dragon Prince, along with the nobles who had chosen him over France. But they faded into the background as her eyes came to rest on the throne, where _he_ sat.

She'd seen him before, but that had been from a distance on the field of battle where Ritsuka had been captured. He'd been nothing more than movement in armor, with pale hair and rage flashing in his eyes. She'd tried to fight her way to him, but she'd been too slow to catch anything but his mocking laughter as one of his lesser dragons carried him and Ritsuka away.

She met his eyes now and fought to control her shock. But for his eyes—green-gold instead of her own blue, and almost glowing with how they caught the candlelight—he could have been her brother. Her twin.

Her hands felt cold. How had he come to be? What wish had brought him to life? Not hers, certainly. Then she realized his own eyes were wide with the same shock, and a blanket of silence had fallen over the room.

He sat lazily in his throne, one leg draped over the arm and a crumple of velvet softening the other arm. His shock quickly vanished, replaced at first by a smile that struck Jeanne's heart in its simple joy. But too quickly that smile hardened into a sneer. He glanced to his left and Jeanne realized the Servant form of Gilles de Rais stood beside him, rubbing his hands together over and over. His thin smile was a shudder-inducing mockery of the man she had trusted.

Then Jean d'Arc said, insultingly casually, "Hello, pretender. Why are you here?"

Jeanne's wits were still scattered from the impact of his presence and the mysterious import of that smile. Automatically, she repeated her earlier words to the dragon at his gates. "I've come to ransom the lady Ritsuka."

He gave her a long, slow look up and down. "With what?" A few of his courtiers tittered and were quickly stifled by a flash of fury in his glance.

Flustered, uncertain, confused at this reaction, Jeanne said, "Myself?" She'd spent so long preparing herself to be in the hands of her enemies again. Remembering her fear of the flames, and resigning herself to burning once more. And now he was… what was he doing?

Jean leaned forward. "You? A fake Jeanne? You're worthless." His eyes traced the banner she still clutched. "That, on the other hand, looks almost genuine. That could be useful."

Outrage sparked in Jeanne's heart at the insult to her banner, but she thought of Ritsuka and held herself back.

"Lay it down," commanded Jean, and she knelt and gently did so, smoothing the banner against the fine carpet. When she stood, he wore a cruel smile. "Perhaps we have something to negotiate. You, go and fetch the girl," he added to one of his guards.

As the guard left, he leaned his chin on his hand again. "The armor is pretty good, too. Take it off."

Jeanne froze. In her life she'd required a squire to help her with her armor. Now… her armor was different. She'd been reborn wearing it, but she knew instinctively where the buckles at the back were. It would be far easier to remove. But although she wore her white chemise underneath, removing her armor would leave her feeling naked.

It was nonsensical. She hadn't worn much more than the chemise when she'd been a shepherd.

"Ouch!" came Ritsuka's voice from one of the hallways leading from the chamber, and Jean, watching Jeanne from his throne, tilted his head toward the sound.

Jeanne quickly reached behind her back and unlatched the buckles as Ritsuka's voice went on, "Oh, yes, thank you, I'm fine—"

She emerged, blinking, into the throne room as Jeanne slipped the coat of armor down her arms. Ritsuka looked unharmed, even healthy. She wore shackles on her wrists connected by a long length of chain, but nothing else restrained her. Nobody tried to stop her as she ran over to Jeanne, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Jeanne! Why are you here? What about the—" and she cut herself off with a sideways look at Jean and his Servant advisor.

Jeanne finished placing her armor on the ground and then stood up, taking Ritsuka's hands. Once again she was puzzled. Hadn't the Dragon Prince even interrogated the Chaldean Master? As quietly as she could, she whispered, "Are you well? Has he harmed you?"

Ritsuka shook her head hard. "Oh no. He… he kissed me once, like you and I kissed. Because that awful Caster told him to. But he gave me a bedroom in a tower and told all his guards I was his guest. He visits me everyday, too. He says mean things sometimes, and, oh Jeanne, I know he's done terrible acts but he reminds me a little of Olga-Marie…" She looked around, as if expecting the Avenger to pop out of the gilt-edged paneling along the walls. Then, sadly, she said, "It's these shackles that make it so she can't save me."

"_I've_ come to save you," said Jeanne quietly, and then she stepped forward, placing herself between her and the piercing gaze from the throne.

iii.

He almost set her free.

False Jeannes offended him above all things, but the real one? She meant nothing _(everything) _to him. His path would not alter one inch because her ghost had come knocking.

That she was Jeanne, true and pure, he knew as soon as she'd walked into the throne room—not by her banner or her armor, but by the twist of his heart as her eyes met his own. He'd been born to avenge her. He _knew_.

But he couldn't let the enemy beside him find out, and so, although it hurt him like a physical wound, he called her false. He took her banner and her armor from her, for he had to take _something_ to hide the truth from his enemy.

It wasn't enough. As they watched the reunion between the two girls, the Caster Gilles de Rais leaned over to him, pressing one hand on his shoulder as he said, "Did I not tell you, my boy, that you were all that was left of the true Jeanne? But there's something about that girl… Let the Master go if you must—you can always find her later via your bond— but do give the false Jeanne to me. I could find a way to make her useful to you."

As Gilles squeezed his shoulder, Jean felt the draw on his heart and the taste of ashes flooded his mouth. Of all his Servants, only Gilles could do that, and it was one reason why he classified the Caster as his enemy.

Another was what he wanted to do to girls who looked like Jeanne.

As she pushed Ritsuka behind her and stepped forward, lifting her chin proudly, Jean said to Gilles, "Absolutely not. She'll be entertaining _me_ this evening."

"Oooh, Master," cooed Gilles. "Of _course_. But when you're done, do consider the humble request of your loyal slave? She has… something…"

Jean's skin crawled. He shrugged off Gilles' hand and stood up, waving at some of his soldiers. "Take my guest outside and strike off her shackles. As for you, pretender—" He lunged forward, lightning-fast, and grabbed her by the wrist. "You will come with me."

She struggled instinctively like the peasant girl she'd been, until he jerked her hard and hissed, "Behave, you idiot."

Her eyes widened and she immediately became docile. When Ritsuka wailed, "But Jeanne—" she flung out her hand.

"Go, Ritsuka. Your friends are waiting for you. They'll know what to do next."

Jean gnashed his teeth and hauled her after him before she could say anything even more stupid. Kicking open one of the side doors from the throne room, he dragged her down the hall, ignoring her sputtered complaints and interjections, until they reached his private apartments.

Once he'd pulled her within, he thrust her away from him as he slammed the door. After locking it, he turned to look at her.

She stood halfway across the spacious room which, like the throne room itself, had no windows but plenty of gilt-edged paneling that hid the stone. Her hands twisted in the skirt of her oddly cut chemise, revealing a fair amount of her well-formed legs. What entity had stitched so revealing a garment boggled the mind—

He put that thought aside. "Are you stupid? Why are you here?"

She blinked those clear blue eyes at him. Cautiously, as if addressing a madman, she said, "I came to ransom Ritsuka?"

Jean made an impatient gesture. "Not _here_. In France. Why have you returned to France?"

Her brow furrowed. "Because you are killing everyone. You are destroying the France I tried so hard to save."

His stomach lurched at the gentle confusion on her face. "Why?" he repeated. "You cannot—you _cannot_ tell me you bear no grudge for how you were betrayed."

A shadow flickered across her eyes, but she answered readily, "I do not. I… I understood what had happened to me, and I did not wish revenge. I prayed for their forgiveness. And my own."

Jean d'Arc, Servant, class Avenger, stared at the Maid of Orleans as his reason for existence shattered around him.

iv.

Jeanne looked at her twin in concern, as his eyes widened and his pupils dilated. He'd behaved so oddly. Although he'd been kind to Ritsuka, he'd rejected Jeanne herself, even though she _knew_ he'd recognized her as she recognized him. He spoke like an invader king in the throne room, but she'd seen real concern in his eyes when he told her to behave as he dragged her away.

She didn't understand anything about him: not where he'd come from, not what his real intentions were. He'd caused so much damage already, but the Chaldean magi had assured her that if they could preserve France from his vengeance, all would return to how it had been when she'd died. It was only when he took France from the hearts and souls of her people that they would truly lose, not just a country but the soul of humanity.

Uncertainly, she once again bunched her skirt in her fists as the silence dragged out. She was no longer sure he even saw her, so she spoke on, words hurried by hope tripping off her tongue. "So you see, Jean, you don't need to do all this. You can stop."

He seemed to snap awake. With a raw, wild laugh, he said, "Stop? Why would I do that?"

Shock uncurled her fists. "Because it's wrong? Because you're _destroying France?_"

"Who says it's wrong?" he demanded. "France is full of small, petty, awful people. None of them deserve to live in a world that betrayed you."

"_God_ says it's wrong," cried Jeanne, aghast at the horrible turn of the conversation.

He stalked toward her, saying, "I don't think that's why you're back at all. You thought you'd go to heaven, my sister, but you didn't, did you?"

She backed away, shaking her head in rejection of his words. She knew she'd been somewhere between her death and her return, and she even understood its function. But she didn't actually remember it, or have any idea how to explain what she intuitively understood.

He pressed on. "You're back because there is no Heaven, and no God within."

"No!" she said fiercely. "That is not true."

Once again he laughed, and it was such an ugly sound. "Come on, Jeanne. We're basically the same. I know what you know. There's a box where souls too bright to return to the world are stored, but it's no Heaven. It's a prison, and a mechanical effect of the world, like how fire turns hearts to ashes. There's no God there. You _know_ it."

Furiously, Jeanne stopped backing away. "You are wickedness itself. I know no such thing, for I have faith, Jean!"

He came very close to her, until they stood a handbreadth apart, but she refused to take even a single step further. He was taller than her and she had to look up to meet his gaze, but this didn't bother her. She was used to looking up.

"Look into my eyes, Jeanne, and tell me about _your faith_." His voice was low and intense.

She looked, and saw horrors underneath the greenish gold: an array of the wretched ugliness of humanity that could only be balanced by looking for God's grace in all things. She saw _herself_, and what she might have been if she'd never been taught to see the true thing beyond all lies. She saw the ashes he'd been made from. For a moment, her tumultuous heart softened.

"My faith warms me, Jean," she began gently. "When I was a child on the grassy hills tending the sheep, I would hear the bells—"

He cut her off by kissing her. His hand cupped the back of her head as his tongue slipped inside her mouth. She was shocked to stillness, but only for a moment. Then, as something hibernating in her began to wake, she shoved at him explosively, sending herself staggering backward.

"What are you _doing?_" she cried, a thread of panic coiling through her at what he'd nearly awoken.

"Tasting your faith," he said, his gaze intent on her mouth. "Or perhaps testing it."

"That isn't how it works!"

He laughed again, but this time it didn't sound like mockery of her. "Do you know where your precious Holy Grail is? The symbol of God, the prize you search for? Yes, I know about it."

When she didn't answer, Jean thumped his chest. "It's in me. I promise, I'm the opposite of everything holy. It must be blackened beyond recovery now."

"It's not," she whispered.

"Is that your faith talking?" he asked, a sneer in his voice.

It wasn't. Now that he'd drawn her attention to it, she saw past the fair hair, past the features that were so plain on her and beautiful on him, to the light burning within him. She thought nothing could diminish that pure glow. Every sin he fed it, the Grail transmuted into grace.

When she shook her head in answer to him, he scowled. "Let's have a contest, then. If you can retain your faith past the rising of the sun, I'll surrender to you. You'll have proven my existence pointless anyhow." He spread his arms wide. "Better yet, maybe God, if God there is, will strike me dead before dawn for what I'm going to do to you."

"God let me be burned," she said softly.

"Hah, that sounds like we're halfway there already. But you know, Jeanne…" He leaned forward a little. "It was men who burned you, and men who let you be burned. I've since burned _them_. All of them."

Jeanne flinched, and saw past her own feelings. She clasped her hands together and then twisted her fingers to and fro, her mind racing. If Ritsuka could reunite with her Servants, it was possible that they could deal with the guardian dragon outside—but that would be much easier with the Dragon Prince distracted. And if she could win his contest and gain the Grail—

"This is a trick," she told him. It made no sense as anything other than a trick, a lie, a temptation to lure her into deadly sin.

"It's not."

She eyed him. He watched her with the same intensity some of the judges at her trial had. "You just want to exercise your wicked lusts on me."

He grinned at her almost boyishly. "True."

Clenching her fists against the warmth that smile evoked, she said, "You think that will shake my faith? I was _burned_."

His teeth flashed brightly. "Ah, but did you beg the executioner for the brand?"

She'd begged to be beheaded. She'd feared the flames like nothing else, and that she didn't remember them was God's greatest blessing.

As she remembered, he circled behind her and pulled her back against his chest. Lost in the memory of the smoke and the crucifix held by the kind friar that she'd focused her prayers on, she barely noticed as he whispered in her ear.

"What do your voices say?"

She was silent, as her voices were. As her voices had been since her return. He moved her to the bedroom's looking glass and positioned her before it, and she came back to herself. When she saw her own reflection, she closed her eyes instinctively, shying away from a wretched vanity that she'd struggled with in life. She'd struggled with so _many_ sins, despite the stories of her holiness.

"Pray if you wish, but keep your eyes open," he said, his grip on her tightening painfully.

She opened her eyes and declared, "This body was made to suffer. Do as you wish. I'm not afraid. You will not break my faith." Then, butterflies in her stomach, she watched—and felt—as he slid his hands up her ribcage to cup her breasts through her linen chemise. His hands were warm, larger than hers but just as calloused. At first the pressure against her breasts was almost comforting, for all that anticipation made her body tighten.

But rather than squeeze or twist, rather than _hurt her_, he stroked his thumbs gently across her nipples, and it felt like the ringing of bells. A bolt of too-familiar lust ran straight down to her secret place as they hardened, lifting so she could see them pressing against the fabric of her chemise.

The butterflies in her stomach exploded into a storm of longing. Jeanne inhaled sharply as she realized she'd already lied. She truly didn't fear her Grailborn brother. But her own sinful nature _terrified_ her.

As he stroked her, watching her closely, that hunger she'd tried to suppress finally woke within her: her needy, sinful flesh preventing her from thinking of anything but each delicate touch, and the fire it sparked within her.

v.

Jean watched Jeanne in the mirror as he held the soft weight of her breasts in his hands, the linen between their skin damp from her sweat. Although she started stiff, with her eyes wide, soon every brush of his thumbs over the peaks showed on her face. Her breath hissed between her teeth, she bit her lip, and her eyelashes fluttered. She squirmed against him. When her eyes closed again, he murmured, "Eyes open, sister."

He needed her to see herself, as much as he needed to see her. He thought if she wasn't forced to see her own reactions, she might pray herself away, or dilute his touch with mental torments of her own invention. He couldn't allow that. He had to show her through her own body that her faith was false, so that she would accept him rather than rejecting him.

Her eyes half-opened again, unfocused, and she brought her knuckle to her mouth. He grinned and ran one hand down her belly, where he started pulling up the front of her chemise. Because of the indecent design, it wasn't much work to bare the reflection of the golden thatch of hair between her legs to his gaze.

She gasped again and looked away, pressing her thighs tightly together. Intrigued by her reaction, he tucked her chemise into the smooth girdle that was all that remained of her armor and then ran his hand over her bare stomach. At her smothered noise, he glanced up and saw her eyes fixed on his descending hand, two spots of color high in her cheeks. Her hands twisted together behind her back.

He dragged his fingers through the thatch and brushed them over the top of her core. When she shivered, he said, highly amused, "You've touched yourself here before. Wicked girl."

Jeanne's mouth pinched together and she shook her head as if shaking off a fly, meeting her own gaze in the mirror in an obvious attempt at focus. Her lips moved in prayer.

He smiled, licked her ear, and moved his hand to stroke her other breast, which disrupted her concentration nicely. Instead she thrashed against him in a way that was half-pleasure, half instinctive escape attempt. As she did, he slipped his finger between her folds.

Her eyes opened wide, meeting his.

"You've touched yourself _just like this _before," he whispered, and applied pressure through his fingers above and below. His lower finger slipped against moisture and then slid deeper, while his upper pressed into yielding flesh.

A low moan emerged from Jeanne, and once again, she closed her eyes, pressing her head against his chest. Her breath came raggedly, and from the way her teeth gritted together he thought she didn't know she'd made a sound.

Encouraged, Jean continued to toy with different pressures at her breast and her core, rotating and rubbing, coaxing her repeatedly to the brink of ecstasy before drawing back. Each time he, he'd say, "But maybe you haven't done this after all…" as he stopped long enough to watch consternation pass across her face.

After the fourth pause, she surged forward, panting, "Yes, I have, I'm so sorry I deceived you, the guilt is killing me—" She sagged back against his chest again as his lower finger slicked into with her a tapered, firm stroke.

After a moment, she murmured, "I tried not to. I knew it was wrong. But sometimes it just took over me. The longing for sin." Her brow wrinkled and her hips jerked.

"Ah," whispered Jean and bit her ear again, his finger moving steadily. "Sin. What is sin, my sister?"

"This, you idiot!" she spat suddenly, before his finger twitched and she settled back again, sighing, "And this… You make me want it. You're dragging me into sin…"

His mouth twisted in annoyance. She was hardly making it a challenge. Was all her faith made of the same self-deceptions? But he was piqued, all the same. So that time, when he drew her panting to the brink, he threw her off.

Her body arched against his as he held her, and the low groan of her pleasure only intensified his need. He _had_ to show her that this connection between them was more real than any God of her faith. He had to, or else her rejection at dawn would break him.

She nestled against his chest as she came back to herself, regarding him in the mirror with heavy-lidded eyes. The first thing she said was, "I am not without sin, but I will not be so proud as to believe I am unforgivable."

"You never confessed _these_ sins," he observed, his hands unmoving.

"I did!" she said, stung.

"I did," she repeated, when his hands remained still.

A silence fell. Jean nibbled on Jeanne's ear for a moment, enjoying her warmth pressed against his palms, waiting for her to reach the truth again.

"I thought maybe they didn't matter," she finally said dreamily. "That the sin stayed inside me. That only confessing it would make it real." Her gaze sharpened as she stared at herself. "But I did confess it, at the end. Because I was afraid it might matter when I came to Judgement." She felt silent a moment, and then said, her voice quiet, "It's that I'm more ashamed of, and yet it's the way I was taught to be." Her thighs relaxed and he was able to slip his hand between.

He took a moment to appreciate the view, meeting her gaze as his passed down her half-naked body. She held the sides of her skirt bunched up with both hands, as if only by accident revealing her naked thighs. Her face was flushed, and her breasts heaved against his cradling hand.

Ah yes, her breasts. He'd been so distracted earlier by the secret he'd stumbled over that he'd let attention to those perfect mounds fall off.

Letting his hand between her legs rest, he pulled the ribbon around her chemise's neckline, opening it wide. It fell around her shoulders, baring her firm, high breasts. Whoever had stitched that garment had been a true devil, given how it slid against her breasts with every outraged breath. He'd done whatever he could to keep from dwelling on them since demanding her armor, because he wanted desperately to control them. And at the sight of the creamy swells tipped with deep pink, he swallowed hard.

As she made a wordless sound of protest, he cupped one, massaging gently before tweaking her nipple. It wasn't enough. The next moment, he'd withdrawn his hand from her core to cover her other breast, feeling stiff flesh against his palm. And then _that_ wasn't enough for him either. His clothing vanished as he spun her around, pushing her down to the pile of furs near the mirror, fastening his mouth on the tip of her breast.

Her cry of protest hitched and became a groan. As he curled his tongue against the peak, her fingers twisted in his hair. "I… I don't want this."

It was no fun pointing out her lies if she truly didn't know them herself, so he didn't argue with her. Instead he listened to her fists in his hair, which pulled him closer and a little toward the neglected breast. He listened, and he obeyed. As his mouth closed over that one, she gasped in genuine surprise. "Oh!"

His tongue moved, wet and flexible as it encircled the nub. A few moments later, her body arched as a bolt of pleasure raced through her, and, her eyes closed, she sighed another, longer _Oh._

He suckled a moment longer, breathing in the distinct smell of her breasts. Then he rose up and kissed her mouth, tasting her there in a light and passing way. In her ear, he whispered, "You speak with your voice and you speak with your body. I pay attention to both."

She peeked out from her sigh and locked eyes with him. Her sigh became a scowl, so tempting he licked her lips before raising his head to consider his options. He gazed down at her for a moment, appreciating lips swollen from her own teeth and the halo of golden wisps from the disarrayed braid that framed her face. The more he stared at her, the more his desire for her grew, until he found himself overwhelmed again. Nothing of the world beyond his door remained in his mind. Touching her became _everything_ to him.

Pinning her down, he kissed her for a long time, licking into her mouth, dominating her tongue and then retreating to tease her lips before surging forward again. She opened her mouth to him readily, but it wasn't until he'd won several battles that she began to get engaged. Her arms flexed against his pinning grip, and she bit his lower lip before trying to catch his tongue with her own.

A moment of happiness passed through him, quickly chased away by the memory of the situation. By the memory of her rejection. _No_. He couldn't let her win.

Finally, she began to squirm against him, sending her breasts swaying and her hips twisting. Her thighs parted farther, so that it didn't take much nudging to stretch between them. As he did so, he kissed her more, until he finally remembered what he was about, and stopped to speak in her ear instead.

"Oh, my sister, when you touched yourself, quietly, secretly, _what man did you think of_?"

_Ah. _He could feel the shock trembling through her body as her thighs tried to close. "I… I didn't. I just did what felt good."

"I don't believe you," he purred. He lifted himself over her and stroked a breast. "What man did you imagine touching you here?" His thumb dragged over one nipple, down into the valley and up the other slope. But right before her second peak, he stopped and lifted his hand.

Instead, he resettled himself between her legs, nudging his hard shaft against her heated core, where he rocked for a moment, just until she moaned and shifted her hips. In response, he pressed harder.

"What man did you imagine between your thighs, Jeanne?"

"No man!" she said frantically, her hips twitching in an instinctive search for satisfaction. "No, nor woman either. No one. It was no one!"

He moved his head to her breast, where he played patiently for a while until she said softly, "It was a sin. I didn't want to stain anybody else with my sin, even in my own mind. I convinced myself an angel brought me those feelings. But it was no holy communion. I pretended that the angel moved against me, like the beasts of the field. And I liked it."

He kissed her again, his mouth soft and welcoming, while below he found her entrance and pushed himself into her core.

vi.

Jeanne, drenched with sweat and regrets, whined deep in her throat as her brother filled her with a hard, stretching girth that settled deep within her. A burning pleasure trembled through her like the sustained peal of a bell, and she wished she had something to hold onto.

It didn't hurt at all, this joining of flesh to flesh. She'd been given a thousand warnings in her teachings, and they'd all been lies. She couldn't even hold onto those.

She'd been so proud of her purity once. And now she whined like an animal, begging for her mate to cover her.

She was lustful. She knew it. She'd done her best to fight against it, but the way he'd so patiently touched her had overcome her mental walls, her silent prayers and her abjurations against temptation. His fingers had glided over her skin and into her core and every stroke made her body sing with delight.

And now she was sinning once again by giving up, by simply surrendering to the pleasure he kept promising her. That he'd already given her. She'd surrendered to that, too. It seemed to get easier each time.

"_Ah, but did you beg the executioner for the brand?"_

She stiffened as what he'd said before rose again in her ears and this time made sense. The truth of her own wanton behavior washed over her. She'd all but begged him to touch her as her dream lover had once touched her—

He slid partially out of her and then back in again, his breath hitching, and hitching more as he repeated himself. A delicious friction grew inside her where he rubbed.

—and now he was giving her a taste of that imagined final step, just as she'd craved. She truly was a very great sinner, and knowing that, she yet wanted _more. More _sin at his hands. More sin from his wet mouth and filthy tongue. She moaned as a wave of pleasure, steady as the tide, passed over her.

Her _pride_ had brought her here, to this edge of disaster. She knew God would forgive, but only if she would repent, and could she truly? That was Jean's true wickedness: making her want _more_, instead of feeling a righteous shame at her failure.

And yet he knew her so well! She didn't understand it, but it had intensified the flames of her fall. He seemed to see through her lies before she knew them herself. It was uncanny.

Another wave of pleasure passed over her as the pace of his thrusts quickened and his breath harshened. She thought he _must_ be a devil. To know her as only God could know her, but able to drag her into this breathless, desperate sin. How could he be other than a devil?

But he was capable of kindness. Ritsuka's judgement meant something.

Jeanne found herself praying again, mindlessly, fragmented chants of praise as his rutting made her more and more excited, more and more _aware_ of that blaze inside that would eventually erupt. She didn't know if she was praying for salvation, or praying that he would fuck her even harder.

Jean looked down at her, brushed her moving lips with his own. Then he stopped his thrusting long enough to change position, sitting cross-legged and pulling her atop his cock. Instinctively, she picked up the movement he'd stopped, twisting herself until she found the place where giddy fire spread from each bolt of friction. He held her close, whispered her name, praised her with incoherent little sounds. Then, as she rocked against him, he focused his attention on her breasts, running his tongue and fingers over rigid flesh, stiffening it further and making Jeanne furrow her brow and lean into the sensation.

She shoved herself against him with increasing force, seeking and riding each wave of pleasure, all the while distractedly thinking about whether he was a devil or not. It wasn't until a sweet, diffuse bliss spread through her that it finally, _finally_ occurred to her.

Perhaps this perfect feeling of connection wasn't, after all, a sin. For… was he not made from her, as Eve had been made from Adam? Was that not a bond between them like unto marriage?

She stopped, trembling, but Jean didn't. He shifted position to lower her back to the furs, and began to thrust more savagely, his flesh slapping against hers as each shove buried him to the hilt.

Staring up at him, she looked at the gold in his eyes. Without warning, a second wave of ecstasy, much deeper and more intense than the first passed over her. It left her shaking, and when it faded, her certainty grew. This was not the vice he thought it was, but something _holy_.

His eyes squeezed shut, as if against intolerable brightness, and she felt his hot spasm. As he jerked and shuddered against her, she wrapped her arms around him.

He froze, and then trembled again before relaxing. For a moment, she held him close, tracing the long lines of his shoulder blades. Then, his voice muffled, he said, "You don't mean that, but damned if I can work out what you do mean."

Mildly, she said, "I'm smarter than you give me credit for."

He kissed her neck for a distracting moment before saying, "No, no, don't torment me. I came up with a whole set of deadly sins to tease you with. But you're better than that, and we both know it." He regarded her darkly. "Tell me why you've put your arms around me, when we've only just got started with lust."

"I have a very great deal of lust," she told him solemnly. "But God has shown me the truth."

Jean groaned and fell to one side, but she kept her arms around him so that when he fell, she rose. He put his arm over his eyes, hiding most of his face. "This is going to be a very long night."

She kissed his chest, licking his own small, hard nipple as he'd done to her. He made another muffled sound and then caught her in his arms as he sat up. "I won't let you catch me in your faith," he warned her, and when she smiled at him, he pushed her onto her stomach and rose onto his knees with a growl.

When he rammed into her again from behind, the sensation was even more exquisite for them both. She panted and then spoke, timing her words against his breathtaking thrusts. "One of my besetting sins was envy, Jean. Envy of the boys… who could go to war... for France. I wanted so much to be one of them. But when God spoke to me, I tried to set that aside."

She looked back at him as he pulled back one of her wrists to push himself in more deeply. His face was twisted in a grimace, but when he met her eyes, the grimace faded. For a moment, he had a boy's face, with old and lonely eyes. "I think you are everything I tried to set aside, my brother. My soulmate."

A look of profound yearning passed over his face, and was then replaced by a sneer. He rocked himself deep inside her. "I'm your vengeance. I would kill _everybody_ for you. You will never accept that, though."

Earnestly, Jeanne said, "God will forgive you if you ask—"

"I don't _want_ God's forgiveness," he shouted, yanking her to him, his hands going over her breasts like claws as he jerked within her. For a moment he held her like that, his nails biting into her breasts and his teeth indenting her shoulder.

But slowly, his fingers relaxed. "I don't want your forgiveness either. Forgiveness is stupid. 'Right and wrong' is stupid. All that matters is you, and all I care about is how you make my existence meaningless." He stroked her breasts gently, running his fingers lightly over the marks of his nails.

Jeanne took advantage of the gentleness of his grip to pull away from him so she could face him. Kneeling with him, so like and unlike how she'd knelt to pray with others, she put her hands on his face. "No. Misguided, perhaps, but not meaningless." She cast about for how to convey her revelation to him. "Jean, I think God took that sinful daydream of mine, and made it into _you_."

Once again his eyes widened in that look of wonder. Then he pulled away from her and staggered to his feet. Nude, he crossed to a table with a decanter and wine glasses, poured himself one and drank it. After, he stared down at her as she knelt on the furs in front of the mirror, his face remote and hard.

Finally, he shook his head and came to her. Taking her hands and drawing her to his feet, he said, "I can't beat that." A wry grin curved across his feet and her heart pounded. "I don't _want_ to beat that. You have an idiot's faith, my sister. But you've defeated me all the same, because I can't bear the thought of convincing you to throw me away." He pressed her hands to his chest. "But I'll never stop wanting to burn the world that betrayed you, Jeanne. It's what I am."

"I know," she whispered, tears pricking at her eyes. "That… that was something else I tried so hard to put aside. And I'm so very sorry, Jean, that such hatred and despair was what survived in my ashes."

"Shut up," he said, with a flash of irritation. "Don't be sorry. I'm not." He shook his head. "We'll never agree on that, though. There's no use in even trying." Under her fingers, his chest began to glow.

Her eyes widened and she tried to pull her hands away. But he held them tight against his body. "You win. You get the prize. You saved France." His eyes darkened. "And this time, nobody will dare try to punish you."

"Jean, no!" she said frantically, but even as she did, she knew he was right. This was why she was here: to know him, to love him, and then to let him go, for the good of humanity.

"Idiot," he told her, as the glow in his chest brightened. "Stupid girl."

"I know," she said wretchedly. "I know. But I won't like it. I won't stop holding you." She felt the searing rim of the Holy Grail press against her fingers. For a moment, it was contained between the two of them, a single cup uniting their twinned souls. Then, with a tingle of gold, it passed into Jeanne, filling her with strength and life and power.

Jean sagged against her and she caught him, lowering them to the ground and cradling his head in her lap. He looked up at her with fogged eyes. "I'm glad I was born, Jeanne. Even if I disappointed you—"

"No, no," she told him. "I will never feel that way again."

He closed his eyes as she felt his dissolution begin. "You were saying something earlier about your childhood, on the hills with your sheep before I… interrupted you. I still don't care about your faith. But… would you tell me about the sheep?"

Stroking his hair, her voice steady and low and calm, Jeanne told him about fluffy sheep and bouncing spring lambs. Even when he was no more than sparkles in her arms, she spoke on, until nothing at all was left. Then she pulled the Grail from her chest, bent over it, and cried.

Hours later, when Ritsuka's forces defeated the dragon, defeated Gilles, and reclaimed the castle, they found her in Jean's chamber, still holding the Holy Grail. She lifted it, showing it to them. "It's empty," she said. Then she frowned. "It's not him. He's gone… somewhere else. But he existed. He was real." She cast her eyes down, as if lost in thought. "I'll find him again."

Ritsuka covered her with a blanket and asked, her voice tiny, "Does that mean you won't return to Chaldea with us?"

Without looking up, Jeanne shook her head. "I can't. Not now. I have to find him first. Who knows what trouble he'll get into without me?" 

* * *

**Author's Note**

Hey! I've started a discord where folks who enjoy my stories can meet and chat about fiction and games. Here is an invite code! qey3vdW Come say hi! I promise not to bite unless asked nicely.


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